You speak of destiny as if it was fixed. Philip Pullman More Quotes by Philip Pullman More Quotes From Philip Pullman 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 squares science thinking There is time, and there is beyond time. History belongs to time, but truth belongs to what is beyond time. In writing of things as they should have been, you are letting truth into history. You are the word of God. Philip Pullman truth-is should-have writing Do not lie to the Scholar. Philip Pullman scholar lying Both the Oblation Board and the Specters of Indifference are bewitched by this truth about human beings: that innocence is different from experience. The Oblation Board fears and hates Dust, and the Specters feast on it, but it's Dust both of them are obsessed by. Philip Pullman different hate dust But I know that all the things I do know are very small compared with the things that I don't know. Philip Pullman knows After modernism, things changed. Indeed, modernism sometimes seems to me like an equivalent of the Fall. Remember, the first thing Adam and Eve did when they ate the fruit was to discover that they had no clothes on. They were embarrassed. Embarrassment was the first consequence of the Fall. And embarrassment was the first literary consequence of this modernist discovery of the surface. "Am I telling a story? Oh my God, this is terrible. I must stop telling a story and focus on the minute gradations of consciousness as they filter through somebody's. Philip Pullman clothes discovery fall You don't read it in the sense of reading a message; it doesn't work like that. What's happening is that the Shadows are responding to the attention you pay them. Philip Pullman shadow reading attention I was born in Norwich in 1946, and educated in England, Zimbabwe, and Australia, before my family settled in North Wales. Philip Pullman zimbabwe australia england My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing Philip Pullman real writing lying 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 Philip Pullman training form writing And among academicians, and among spirits. I found folly everywhere, but there were grains of wisdom in every stream of it. No doubt there was much more wisdom that I failed to recognize. Life is hard, Mr. Scoresby, but we cling to it all the same. Philip Pullman life-is-hard spirit doubt My books are about killing God. Philip Pullman killing book What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism Philip Pullman writing morning years I've been surprised by how little criticism I've got. Harry Potter's been taking all the flak. I'm a great fan of J.K. Rowling, but the people - mainly from America's Bible Belt - who complain that Harry Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven't got enough in their lives. Meanwhile, I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God. Philip Pullman book america people 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. Philip Pullman book art fall We have to learn everything we do. Philip Pullman If you want to write anything that works, you have to go with the grain of your talent, not against it. If your talent is inert and sullen in the face of business or politics...but takes fire at the thought of ghosts and vampires and witches and demons then feed the flames, feed the flames. Philip Pullman flames fire writing Just sort of relax your mind and say yes, it does hurt, I know. Don't try and shut it out. Philip Pullman hurt mind trying Sticks and stones, I'll break yer bones, but names ain't worth a quarrel. Philip Pullman sticks names stones ...when all the openings were closed, then the worlds would all be restored to their proper relations with one another, Lyra’s Oxford and Will’s would lie over each other again, like transparent images on two sheets of film being moved closer and closer until they merged–although they would never truly touch. Philip Pullman oxford two lying
