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Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman Quotes

Film writer

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Famous Philip Pullman Quotes

“The sight filled the northern sky; the immensity of it was scarcely conceivable. As if from Heaven itself, great curtains of delicate light hung and trembled. Pale green and rose-pink, and as transparent as the most fragile fabric, and at the bottom edge a profound fiery crimson like the fires of Hell, they swung and shimmered loosely with more grace than the most skillful dancer.”

IfsLightHeavenHellFireGraceSkySightGreenFilledRoseProfoundBottomEdgesDancerFragileDelicatePaleFabricHungCurtainsTransparentFierySkillfulImmensityCrimsonNorthern Lights
Book:Northern lights
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“My real purpose in telling middle-school students stories was to practice telling stories. And I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times. And the way I would justify it to the head teacher if he came in or to any parents who complained was, look, I'm telling these great stories because they're part of our cultural heritage. I did believe that.”

IfsWayBelieveLooksRealStoriesSchoolPurposeParentPracticeTeacherMiddleStudentsModelsStorytellingJustifyHeritageTelling StoriesMiddle SchoolCultural HeritageOdysseyIliad
Author:Philip Pullman
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“The range of individuality in children is infinite, but every class of children seemed to have the same groups. And there was a chief girl and a chief boy - a girl that all the other girls of that age looked up to and imitated and a boy that all the boys looked up to and imitated. I realized that if I got them on my side and exclusively taught them for a couple of weeks, maybe for the first full term, then I wouldn't have any trouble. Teachers often make the mistake of thinking they're the boss of the class; they're not. The boss of the class is sitting down there somewhere.”

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Author:Philip Pullman
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“If we all gave all our goods to the poor, the church would fall apart. If we all hated our father and mother, as Jesus told us to, there'd be an end of the church's emphasis on the family as being the one important thing holding the whole society together. There are all sorts of ways in which the church's teachings contradict directly what Jesus says in the Gospel.”

IfsWayImportantEndsWholeTogetherMotherFallFatherJesusChurchPoorTeachingImportant ThingsHatedGoodsEmphasisFalling ApartOur Father
Author:Philip Pullman
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“I think it's perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don't know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it's because he's ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they're responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I'd want nothing to do with them.”

IfsThinkingKnowsWantWellsMayReligionUniverseNamesIgnoranceSightResponsibleCrueltyAshamedHidingFollowersPromoting
Author:Philip Pullman
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“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?”

IfsNeedsGivingWarMatterFightingBearsHonorCostNotionFactorsInsultWitch
Book:Northern lights
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“What work do I have to do then?" said Will, but went on at once, "No, on second thought, don't tell me. I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I'll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I'll be resentful because it'll feel as if I didn't have a choice, and if I don't do it, I'll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else.”

IfsThinkingFeelsShouldSaidEndsMightChoicesFightingHealingGuiltyExploringResentfulSecond Thoughts
Author:Philip Pullman
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“He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.... We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we'll build... The Republic of Heaven.”

IfsThinkingWorldKindImportantDifferentHardHeavenDifficultStudyThis WorldHard WorkPatientFinishedKingdomsCuriousThis LifeRepublicCheerfulDifficult ThingsDifferent WorldsKingdom Of HeavenHis Dark Materials
Book:The Amber Spyglass
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“If I'm reading something I happen to know and gets it wrong, I just don't trust the book any more. What I ask of a novel I'm reading is that it should know a fraction more about the things I know than I do. When I'm writing...I ask myself: would I be convinced by this if I read it? If I knocked against this bit of scenery, would it feel solid?”

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Author:Philip Pullman
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“Even if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it, because it won't be nothing. We'll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves; we'll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze; we'll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, which is our true home and always was.”

IfsWorldMeanHomeFallStarsMillionsAliveThousandMoonWelcomeGrassBreezeOblivionBladesDewRaindropsBlades Of GrassTrue Home
Book:The Amber Spyglass
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“Do you think I could bear to live on after you died? Oh, Lyra, I'd follow you down to the world of the dead without thinking twice about it, just like you followed Roger; and that would be two lives gone for nothing, my life wasted like yours. No, we should spend our whole lifetimes together, good long busy lives, and if we can't spend them together, we... we'll have to spend them apart.”

IfsThinkingWorldShouldLongTwoWholeWould BeTogetherGoneLike YouBearsDiedLifetimeBusyRogerBusy LifeTwo LivesGood Long
Book:The Amber Spyglass
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“Lord, if I thought you were listening, I'd pray for this above all: that any church set up in your name should remain poor, and powerless, and modest. That it should wield no authority except that of love. That it should never cast anyone out. That it should own no property and make no laws. That it should not condemn, but only forgive.”

IfsShouldLawNamesChurchPoorLordListeningPrayingAuthorityForgivingPropertyCastsModestPowerless
Book:The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
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“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.”

IfsBookBuildingSourcePhilosopherMysteriousSymbolsSurprisingDictionarySymbolismEmblems
Book:Northern lights
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“There are some who live by every rule and cling tightly to their rectitude because they fear being swept away by a tempest of passion, and there are others who cling to the rules because they fear that there is no passion there at all, and that if they let go they would simply remain where they are, foolish and unmoved; and they could bear that least of all. Living a life of iron control lets them pretend to themselves that only by the mightiest effort of will can they hold great passions at bay.”

IfsPassionEffortBearsLetting GoFoolishIronLive ByTempestSwept AwayGreat PassionRectitude
Book:The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
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“Gradually, at various points in our childhoods, we discover different forms of conviction. There's the rock-hard certainty of personal experience ("I put my finger in the fire and it hurt,"), which is probably the earliest kind we learn. Then there's the logically convincing, which we probably come to first through maths, in the context of Pythagoras's theorem or something similar, and which, if we first encounter it at exactly the right moment, bursts on our minds like sunrise with the whole universe playing a great chord of C Major.”

IfsMindFirstsKindDifferentHardWholeMomentsFormScienceUniverseHurtFireChildhoodRocksMajorsLogicOur ChildrenFingersVariousConvictionMathCertaintyEncountersSunriseIt HurtsConvincingChordsPersonal ExperiencesTheoremsRight Moment
Author:Philip Pullman
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“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.”

IfsWayInspirationalTwoDoneFeelingsFunnyJobsUsedFoundProcessTakenSeaDecidedNotionPossessionSatisfyingClosetsSailingBlanketTwo DaysDeckTidyBunk
Author:Philip Pullman
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