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We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.

Philip Pullman

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Philip Pullman
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: October 19
Audiobook Narrator
Executive Producer
Film Writer
Librarian
Novelist
Playwright
University Teacher
Writer
Norwich
Norfolk
Sir Philip Pullman
Need
Soon
Needs
Silence
Time
Books
Wrongs
Forever
Shalt
Rights
Lists
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Tables
Upon
Thou
Book
Forgotten

More quotes by Philip Pullman

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All good things pass away.
Philip Pullman
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Tell him, we are not devils but we have friends who are.
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?
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All stories teach, whether the storyteller intends them to or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by. They teach it much more effectively than moral precepts and instructions.
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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.
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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.
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...because where we are is always the most important place.
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Tolkien seems to me reactionary, conservative, fearful of a modern world. Fearful of anything that isn't sanctioned by the passage of long eons of time. I think what I'm doing in His Dark Materials is politically the reverse of that.
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Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.
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I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn’t any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all.
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The way you speak of the characters in your story shows what you think of the values of conservatives‚ or evolution, for example. It shows where your moral center is. So you are in the message business whether you like it or not.
Philip Pullman
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And barely ten minutes later the soft sound of wingbeats came to their ears, and Balthamos stood up eagerly. The next moment, the two angels were embracing, and Will, gazing into the flames, saw their mutual affection. More than affection: they loved each other with a passion.
Philip Pullman
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No one has the right to live without being shocked.
Philip Pullman
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When you live for many hundreds of years, you know that every opportunity will come again.
Philip Pullman
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I write almost always in the third person, and I don't think the narrator is male or female anyway. They're both, and young and old, and wise and silly, and sceptical and credulous, and innocent and experienced, all at once. Narrators are not even human - they're sprites.
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Lee was too cool by nature to rage at fate his manner was to raise an eyebrow and greet it laconically.
Philip Pullman
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All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.
Philip Pullman
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Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them they are brave, proud, beautiful, and clever.
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A professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they're not inspired as when they are.
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Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would.
Philip Pullman