Philip Pullman Quotes

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.

If there is a war to be fought, we don’t consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not to fight.

You speak of destiny as if it was fixed.

There’s been terrible things we seen, en’t there? And more a coming, more’n likely. So I think I’d rather not know what’s in the future. I’ll stick to the present.

When you live for many hundreds of years, you know that every opportunity will come again.

You going to be a scientist when you grow up?” That sort of question deserved a blank stare, which it got.

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.

You are dead- what am I speaking to?

I will love you for ever, whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead I'll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again.

'Thou shalt not' might reach the head, but it takes 'Once upon a time' to reach the heart.

Tell them stories. They need the truth you must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories.

She longed for cutlasses, pistols, and brandy; she had to make do with coffee, and pencils, and verbs.

Children are not less intelligent than adults; what they are is less informed.

Was there only one world after all which spent its time dreaming of others?

From what we are, spirit; from what we do, matter. Matter and spirit are one.

And think what worrying does: has anyone ever added a single hour to the length of his life by worrying about it?

There is another consequence of any belief in a single god, and that is that it is a very good excuse for people to behave very badly.

Life is hard . . . but we cling to it all the same

You'll drift apart, it's true, but you'll be out in the open, part of everything alive again.

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.

When it comes to telling children stories, they don’t need simple language. They need beautiful language.

Make this the golden rule, the equivalent of the Hippocratic oath: Everything we ask a child to do should be worth doing.

...his face bore an expression that mingled haughty disdain with a tender, ardent sympathy, as if he would love all things if only his nature could let him forget their defects.

I'm perfectly happy about being superstitious and atheistic.

For every once upon a time there must be a story to follow, because if a story doesn't, something else will, and it might not be as harmless as a story.

I'm just trying to wake up - I'm so afraid of sleeping all my life and then dying - I want to wake up first. I wouldn't care if it was just for an hour, as long as I was properly alive and awake.

Sticks and stones, I'll break yer bones, but names ain't worth a quarrel.

Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.

Lee was too cool by nature to rage at fate; his manner was to raise an eyebrow and greet it laconically.

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.

Just sort of relax your mind and say yes, it does hurt, I know. Don't try and shut it out.

We have to learn everything we do.

No,' he said, 'memory's a poor thing to have. It's your own real hair and mouth and arms and eyes and hands I want. I didn't know I could ever love anything so much.

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.

A murderer was a worthy companion.

I got a book token for Christmas and exchanged it for a book called A History of Art, and that book (which I still have-battered and falling to pieces) became more precious to me than any Bible.

My books are about killing God.

Everything means something.

What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose

I was born in Norwich in 1946, and educated in England, Zimbabwe, and Australia, before my family settled in North Wales.

So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky.

It’s like having to make a choice: a blessing or a curse. The one thing you can’t do is choose neither.

But we can trust him Roger, I swear," she said with a final effort,"Because he's Will.

Tell him, we are not devils but we have friends who are.

What is worth having is worth working for.

Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died.

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.

There will be days when the stuff is not flowing freely. What you do then is MAKE IT UP!

I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God.... My books are about killing God.

All things from the north are devilish.