564 Quotes by philip pullman

Just finished ‘Secrecy’ – truly enthralling both as a love story and as a tale of suspense – but much more than both.

It’s only through honesty and courage that science can work at all. The Ptolemaic understanding of the solar system was undermined and corrected by the constant pressure of more and more honest reporting.

No one, not even Shakespeare, surpasses Milton in his command of the sound, the music, the weight and taste and texture of English words.

It does not make sense. It cannot exist. It’s impossible, and if it isn’t impossible, it’s irrelevant, and if it isn’t either of those things, it’s embarrassing.

How can the weather have a state of mind?” said Papadimitriou. The gyptian said, “You think the weather is only out there? It’s in here too,” and tapped his head. “So do you mean that the weather’s state of mind is just our state of mind?” “Nothing is just anything,” the gyptian replied, and would say no more.

Had reason ever created a poem, or a symphony, or a painting? If rationality can’t see things like the secret commonwealth, it’s because rationality’s vision is limited. The secret commonwealth is there. We can’t see it with rationality any more than we can weigh something with a microscope: it’s the wrong sort of instrument. We need to imagine as well as measure...

In fact, these possibility collapses happen at the level of elementary particles, but they happen in just the same way: one moment several things are possible, the next moment only one thing happens, and the rest don’t exist. Except that other worlds have sprung into being, on which they did happen.

The powers of this world are very strong. Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current. Go well, Lyra; bless you, child, bless you. Keep your own counsel.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.