“Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“For a human being, nothing comes naturally,' said Grumman. 'We have to learn everything we do.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“Lee saw the fireball and head through the roar in his ears Hester saying, "That's the last of 'em Lee."
He said, or thought, "Those poor men didn't have to come to this, nor did we."
She said, "We held 'em off. We held out. We're a-helping Lyra."
Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“From what we are, spirit; from what we do, matter. Matter and spirit are one.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“It’s like having to make a choice: a blessing or a curse. The one thing you can’t do is choose neither.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“Just sort of relax your mind and say yes, it does hurt, I know. Don't try and shut it out.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“The fact was that where Will is concerned, she was developing a new kind of sense, as if he were simply more in focus than anyone she'd known before. Everything about him was clear and close and immediate.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy?
The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer.
When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and show her how to reach Oxford, and those were powers that were useful, but he might still have been untrustworthy or cowardly. A murderer was a worthy companion. She felt as safe with him as she'd done with Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“It does not make sense. It cannot exist. It's impossible, and if it isn't impossible, it's irrelevant, and if it isn't either of those things, it's embarrassing.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“He dared to do what men and women don't even dare to think. And look what he's done already: he's torn open the sky, he's opened the way to another world. Who else has ever done that? Who else could think of it?”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“I found folly everywhere, but there were grains of wisdom in every stream of it.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“She shook her head and whispered, "No. No! That can't be true. Impossible!"
"You think things have to be possible? Things have to be true!”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“The children will come to no harm."
"Except for the older ones. Like that poor kid down there."
"Mr. Scoresby, that is the way this world works. And if you want to put an end to cruelty and injustice, you must take me farther on. I have a job to do."
"Seems to me—" Lee said, feeling for the words, "seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“You going to be a scientist when you grow up?” That sort of question deserved a blank stare, which it got.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“He let her do it, then looked around for his fingers. There they were, curled like a bloody quotation mark on the lead. He laughed.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“The Specters feast as vampires feast on blood, but the Specters’ food is attention. A conscious and informed interest in the world. The immaturity of children is less attractive to them.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“Everything about this is embarrassing" she said. "D'you know how embarrassing it is to mention good and evil in a scientific laboratory? Have you any idea? One of the reasons I became a scientist was not to have to think about that kind of thing.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“A few minutes after he arrived, Lee was talking to a group of astronomers eager to learn what news he could bring them, for there are few natural philosophers as frustrated as astronomers in a fog.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“Who are you?" the woman said at last.
"Lyra Silver—"
"No, where d'you come from? What are you? How do you know things like this?" Wearily Lyra sighed; she had forgotten how roundabout Scholars could be. It was difficult to tell them the truth when a lie would have been so much easier for them to understand.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy?
The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer.
When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“Friends … They come to your house and they know your parents and.… Sometimes a boy might ask me around to his house, and I might go or I might not, but I could never ask him back. So I never had friends, really. I would have liked … I had my cat,”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“Ruta Skadi was four hundred and sixteen years old, with all the pride and knowledge of an adult witch queen. She was wiser by far than any short-lived human, but she had not the slightest idea of how like a child she seemed beside these ancient beings. Nor did she know how far their awareness spread out beyond her like filamentary tentacles to the remotest corners of universes she had never dreamed of; nor that she saw them as human-formed only because her eyes expected to. If she were to perceive their true form, they would seem more like architecture than organism, like huge structures composed of intelligence and feeling.
But they expected nothing else: she was very young.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“If you speak to people, you just attract their attention,” he said, with a shaking voice. “You should just keep quiet and still and they overlook you. I’ve been doing it all my life. I know how to do it. Your way, you just—you make yourself visible.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“In some lights they were hardly there at all, just visible as a drifting quality in the light, a rhythmic evanescence, like veils of transparency turning before a mirror.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“You forget I am a woman, Your Eminence, and thus not so subtle as a prince of the Church.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
“It was difficult to tell them the truth when a lie would have been so much easier for them to understand.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Subtle Knife
Philip Pullman
Born place: in Norwich, Norfolk, England, The United Kingdom
Born date October 19, 1946
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“I wish that some time, long ago, something had not been said that was said, or something done that was not done. Something, had we known, which might have let him grow differently, something which would have seen him become another man than the bitter, bent thing I saw up there. It is best now if he is dead. But it is a waste of something that might have been.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from The Hand of Oberon
“The home-schooling movement has quietly grown to a size where one and half million young people are being educated entirely by their own parents; last month the education press reported the amazing news that, in their ability to think, children schooled at home seem to be five or even ten years ahead of their formally trained peers.”
― John Taylor Gatto, quote from Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education
“If ever Scott Fitzgerald needed evidence to substantiate his aphorism that “the very rich…are different from you and me,” it was here in spades in this portrait gallery of extravagant crazies that is the unique saga of the Vanderbilt family.”
― quote from Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt
“People lived their lives, carelessly dropping information as if it were trash. The writer moved behind them like a ragpicker. She cleaned and separated their garbage, culled and collected it.”
― Nell Freudenberger, quote from The Dissident
“What's this business about the 'little man in the canoe?' If it's big enough for a canoe, it's too big for me.”
― Quentin R. Bufogle, quote from Horse Latitudes
The Darkest Minds
All the Light We Can...
The Eyre Affair
Shadowfever
The Grapes of Wrath
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