Quotes from Northern Lights

“You cannot change what you are, only what you do.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“That's the duty of the old,' said the Librarian, 'to be anxious on the behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.'

They sat for a while longer, and then parted, for it was late, and they were old and anxious.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“You speak of destiny as if it was fixed.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“When he'd sworn at her and been sworn at in return, they became great friends.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“Human beings can't see anything without wanting to destroy it. That's original sin. And I'm going to destroy it. Death is going to die.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“That’s the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all; it's that which gives their lies such wide-eyed conviction.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“The idea hovered and shimmered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in case it burst. But she was familiar with the way of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“Lonely? I don't know. They tell me this is cold. I don't know what cold is, because I don't freeze. So I don't know what lonely means either. Bears are made to be solitary.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“We feel cold, but we don't mind it, because we will not come to harm. And if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn't feel other things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the aurora, or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin. It's worth being cold for that.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not, or die of despair...death will sweep through all the worlds; it will be the triumph of despair, forever. The universes will all become nothing more than interlocking machines, blind and empty of thought, feeling, life...”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“When you live for many hundreds of years, you know that every opportunity will come again.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal.
But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“But think of Adam and Eve like an imaginary number, like the square root of minus one: you can never see any concrete proof that it exists, but if you include it in your equations, you can calculate all manner of things that couldn't be imagined without it.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“If a witch needs something, another witch will give it to her. If there is war to be fought, we don't consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not it is right to fight. Nor do we have any notion of honor. An insult to a bear is a deadly thing. To us...inconceivable. How could you insult a witch? What would it matter if you did?”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“One moment several things are possible, the next moment only one happens, and the rest don't exist. Except that other worlds have sprung into being, on which the did happen.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed. At that moment all Will's choices existed at once. But to keep them all in existence meant doing nothing. He had to choose, after all.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“Symbols and emblems were everywhere. Buildings and pictures were designed to be read like books. Everything stood for something else; if you had the right dictionary, you could read Nature itself. It was hardly surprising to find philosophers using the symbolism of their time to interpret knowledge that came from a mysterious source.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“But suppose your dæmon settles in a shape you don't like?

Well, then, you're discontented, en't you? There's plenty of folk as'd like to have a lion as a dæmon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they're going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is.

But it didn't seem to Lyra that she would ever grow up.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, and clever.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“If there is a war to be fought, we don’t consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not to fight.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“And then Serafina understood something for which the witches had no word: it was the idea of pilgrimage. She understood why these beings would wait for thousands of years and travel vast distances in order to be close to something important, and how they would feel differently for the rest of time, having been briefly in its presence. That was how these creatures looked now, these beautiful pilgrims of rarefied light, standing around the girl with the dirty-face and the tartan skirt and the boy with the wounded hand who was frowning in his sleep.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually wracked with pain. ”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“There is a correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm! The stars are alive, child! Did you know that? Everything out there is alive, and there are grand purpose abroad! The universe is full of intentions, you know. Everything happens for a purpose.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

“She found out that having something to do prevented you from feeling seasick, and that even a job like scrubbing a deck could be satisfying, if it was done in a seamanlike way. She was very taken with this notion, and later on she folded the blankets on her bunk in a seamanlike way, and put her possessions in the closet in a seamanlike way, and used 'stow' instead of 'tidy' for the process of doing so. After two days at sea, Lyra decided that this was the life for her.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Northern Lights

Video

About the author

Popular quotes

“Al brought his attention back down from the ceiling. “You really don’t want to have sex with him? Why? What’s wrong with him?”
― Kim Harrison, quote from White Witch, Black Curse

“I thought so. Those who can really do what they promise don't first pause to promise what they can do”
― Brian K. Vaughan, quote from Saga, Vol. 1

“Besides, if Hans came here, he might ask me to let him have some flour on credit, and that I could not do. Flour is one thing, and friendship is another, and they should not be confused. Why, the words are spelled differently, and mean quite different things. Everyone can see that.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Complete Fairy Tales

“...If she were studying Orciny, and there might be excellent reasons to do so, she'd be doing her doctorate in Folklore or Anthropology or maybe Comp Lit. Granted, the edges of disciplines are getting vague. Also that Mahalia is one of a number of young archaeologists more interested in Foucault and Baudrillard than in Gordon Childe or in trowels.”
― China Miéville, quote from The City & the City

“Two days ago, I was lunching at the Writers Union with the eminent historian Tomashevski. That's the sort of man you should know. Respected, charming, hasn't produced a piece of work in ten years. He has a system, which he explained to me. First, he submits an outline for a biography to the Academy to be absolutely sure his approach is consistent with Party policy. A crucial first step, as you'll see later. Now, the person he studies is always an important figure - that is, someone from Moscow - hence Tomashevski must do his Russian research close to home for two years. But this historical character also traveled, yes, lived for some years in Paris or London; hence Tomashevski must do the same, apply for and receive permission for foreign residence. Four years have passed. The Academy and the Party are rubbing their hands in anticipation of this seminal study of the important figure by the eminent Tomashevski. And now Tomashevski must retire to the solitude of a dacha outside Moscow to tend his garden and creatively brood over his cartons of research. Two more years pass in seminal thought. And just as Tomashevski is about to commit himself to paper, he checks with the Academy again only to learn that Party policy has totally about-faced; his hero is a traitor, and with regrets all around, Tomashevski must sacrifice his years of labor for the greater good. Naturally, they are only too happy to urge Tomashevski to start a new project, to plow under his grief with fresh labor. Tomashevski is now studying a very important historical figure who lived for some time in the South of France. He says there is always a bright future for Soviet historians, and I believe him.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, quote from Gorky Park

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.