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As for what it's against - the story is against those who pervert and misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book and a priesthood and an apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms.

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
Order
Priesthood
Stories
Freedoms
Power
Dominate
Human
Doctrine
Pervert
Humans
Authority
Wields
Book
Holy
Apparatus
Kind
Story
Misuse
Religion
Suppress

More quotes by Philip Pullman

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The great thing about fairy tales and folk tales is that there is no authentic text.
Philip Pullman
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Literary modernism kind of grew out of a sense that, “Oh my god! I’m telling a story! Oh, that can’t be the case, because I’m a clever person. I’m a literary person! What am I going to do to distinguish myself? I know! I’ll write Ulysses.”
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When he'd sworn at her and been sworn at in return, they became great friends.
Philip Pullman
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But we can trust him Roger, I swear, she said with a final effort,Because he's Will.
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There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book.
Philip Pullman
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I look at the state of the American politics and I scratch my head in wonder. How can the Republican Party, any party, have fallen into to such a state of self-destructiveness - self-destructive stupidity? How is it possible? I don't know. It's an absolute mystery to me.
Philip Pullman
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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.
Philip Pullman
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All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?
Philip Pullman
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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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I'm with the Grimms on this: stories for young and old. You can't characterize them any better than that.
Philip Pullman
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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.
Philip Pullman
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Life is hard . . . but we cling to it all the same
Philip Pullman
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Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.
Philip Pullman
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Religion begins in story. Yes, it does, because religion is an attempt to make sense of what is incomprehensible to us, what is inexplicable, what is awe-inspiring, what is frightening, what moves us to great wonder, and so on. That is the religious impulse, and it is part of our psychological makeup -- of everyone's psychological makeup.
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?
Philip Pullman
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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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I am a story teller. If I wanted to send a message I would have written a sermon.
Philip Pullman
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You'll drift apart, it's true, but you'll be out in the open, part of everything alive again.
Philip Pullman
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When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed.
Philip Pullman
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If you can't think of what to write, tough luck write anyway.
Philip Pullman