Quotes by Philip Pullman

About Philip Pullman:

Philip Pullman is a British writer. He is the author of several best-selling books, most notably the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials and the fictionalised biography of Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. In 2008, The Times named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945".
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

When you stopped believing in God," he went on, "did you stop believing in good and evil?" "No. But I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what pe...

Philip Pullman

I will love you forever, whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again . . .

Philip Pullman

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...

Philip Pullman

Lyra marveled at the effect hope could have.

Philip Pullman

she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.

Philip Pullman

Lee was too cool by nature to rage at fate; his manner was to raise an eyebrow and greet it laconically.

Philip Pullman

It comes from history. It comes from the record of the Inquisition, persecuting heretics and torturing Jews and all that sort of stuff; and it comes from the other side, too, from the Protestants burning the Catholics. It comes from the insensate pur...

Philip Pullman

There is time, and there is what is beyond time. History belongs to time, but truth belongs to what is beyond time.

Philip Pullman

I am a strong believer in the tyranny, the dictatorship, the absolute authority of the writer.

Philip Pullman

I’m with the fool in the psalm. You thought we could get on without you; no – you didn’t care whether we got on without you or not. You just got up and left. So that’s what we’re doing, we’re getting on.

Philip Pullman

Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isn’t enough. She has been lying all her life, telling stories to people, making up fantasies, and suddenly she comes to a point where that’s not enough. All she can do is tell the truth. She tells the t...

Philip Pullman

Stories don’t teach us to be good; it isn’t as simple as that. They show us what it feels like to be good, or to be bad. They show us people like ourselves doing right things and wrong things, acting bravely or acting meanly, being cruel or being...

Philip Pullman

Stories don’t teach us to be good; it isn’t as simple as that. They show us what it feels like to be good, or to be bad. They show us people like ourselves doing right things and wrong things, acting bravely or acting meanly, being cruel or being...

Philip Pullman

There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children’s book. In adult literary fiction, stories are there on sufferance. Other things are felt to be more important: technique, style...

Philip Pullman

It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up....

Philip Pullman

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 hu...

Philip Pullman

I am a religious person, although I am not a believer.

Philip Pullman

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 ...

Philip Pullman

We measure the value of a civilized society by the number of Libraries it opens, not the number it closes down.

Philip Pullman

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

Philip Pullman

I think there's a difference between (a) offending people for its own sake, which I don't necessarily want to do, because some people are good and decent and it would be unkind to upset them simply to indulge my own self-importance, and (b) challengi...

Philip Pullman

Author Bio

  • NamePhilip Pullman
  • DescriptionEnglish author
  • BornOctober 19, 1946
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist
  • WorksHis Dark Materials Trilogy; The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ
  • AwardsAstrid Lindgren Memorial Award; Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire