Quotessence
Home / Authors / Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman Quotes

Film writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsStoriesWritingThinkingWorldBookKnowsHis Dark MaterialsWayChildrenPeopleDoeHumansImaginationLoveWantWellsKindMomentsReading

Famous Philip Pullman Quotes

“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.”

IfsThinkingFirstsChildrenAgeGirlSidesTermMistakeClassBoysTeacherTroubleGroupsWeekTaughtCoupleSittingInfiniteIndividualityI RealizedChiefsRangeBossSitting DownOther Girl
Author:Philip Pullman
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him -- didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever.”

ThinkingFeelsHeartLongMomentsHandsTogetherLeftSpeakVoiceHoursForeverAdventureGoing AwayCherishTendernessHis LoveLove SomeoneBruises
Author:Philip Pullman
Create image

“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
Create image

“I feel with some passion that what we truly are is private, and almost infinitely complex, and ambiguous, and both external and internal, and double- or triple- or multiply natured, and largely mysterious even to ourselves; and furthermore that what we are is only part of us, because identity, unlike "identity", must include what we do. And I think that to find oneself and every aspect of this complexity reduced in the public mind to one property that apparently subsumes all the rest ("gay", "black", "Muslim", whatever) is to be the victim of a piece of extraordinary intellectual vulgarity.”

ThinkingFeelsMindPassionBlackPiecesIdentityGayIntellectualAspectVictimPropertyComplexesExtraordinaryOneselfMysteriousComplexityInternalsAmbiguousVulgarity
Author:Philip Pullman
Create image

“Tolkien, who created this marvellous vehicle, doesn't go anywhere in it. He just sits where he is. What I mean by that is that he always seems to be looking backwards, to a greater and more golden past; and what's more he doesn't allow girls or women any important part in the story at all. Life is bigger and more interesting than The Lord of the Rings thinks it is.”

ThinkingMeanImportantStoriesSeemsPastLife IsGirlInterestingLordGreaterBiggerRingsGoldenVehicleBackwardsMarvellous
Author:Philip Pullman
Create image