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ca1e181
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What work do I have to do then?" said Will, but went on at once, "No, on second thought, don't tell me. I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I'll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I'll be resentful because it'll feel as if I didn't have a choice, and if I don't do it, I'll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one ..
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Philip Pullman |
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ef24a55
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For a human being, nothing comes naturally,' said Grumman. 'We have to learn everything we do.
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learning
instinct
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Philip Pullman |
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04cfe70
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because he's Will
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inspirational
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Philip Pullman |
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5774deb
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He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.... We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we'll build... The Republic of Heaven.
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heaven
freedom
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Philip Pullman |
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4bad94c
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When you live for many hundreds of years, you know that every opportunity will come again.
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opportunities
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Philip Pullman |
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40bc7d0
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We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not, or die of despair...death will sweep through all the worlds; it will be the triumph of despair, forever. The universes will all become nothing more than interlocking machines, blind and empty of thought, feeling, life...
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Philip Pullman |
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b0bd8de
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Seems to me-" Lee said, feeling for the words, "seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed...."
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Philip Pullman |
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ab52d89
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Tell them stories. They need the truth you must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories.
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Philip Pullman |
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5ba67d1
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We have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us, there is no elsewhere.
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Philip Pullman |
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264d4e2
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If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal. But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart.
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parallel-universe
possibility
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Philip Pullman |
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c78d5ff
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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.
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Philip Pullman |
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c277b5c
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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... and then someone passed me a bit of some sweet stuff, and suddenly I realized that I had been to China. So to speak. And I'd forgotten it.
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Philip Pullman |
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ec464cc
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No,' he said, 'memory's a poor thing to have. It's your own real hair and mouth and arms and eyes and hands I want. I didn't know I could ever love anything so much...
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Philip Pullman |
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296918f
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I know whom we must fight...it is the Church. For all its history, it's tried to suppress and control every natural impulse.That is what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling.
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Philip Pullman |
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78e16f5
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because where we are is always the most important place.
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Philip Pullman |
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bc38c8e
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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... I'll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you... We'll live in birds and flowers and dra..
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Philip Pullman |
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73ba7bf
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Occasionally they would hear a harsh croak or a splash as some amphibian was disturbed, but the only creature they saw was a toad as big as Will's foot, which could only flop in a pain-filled sideways heave as if it were horribly injured. It lay across the path, trying to move out of the way and looking at them as if it knew they meant to hurt it. 'It would be merciful to kill it,' said Tialys. 'How do you know?' said Lyra. 'It might still ..
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killing
death
toads
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Philip Pullman |
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a8b207c
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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. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit.
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Philip Pullman |
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7de7fd4
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From what we are, spirit; from what we do, matter. Matter and spirit are one.
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Philip Pullman |
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8f86059
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Lord, if I thought you were listening, I'd pray for this above all: that any church set up in your name should remain poor, and powerless, and modest. That it should wield no authority except that of love. That it should never cast anyone out. That it should own no property and make no laws. That it should not condemn, but only forgive.
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Philip Pullman |
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cff1a8a
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And at the word alone, Will felt a great wave of rage and despair moving outwards from a place deep within him, as if his mind were an ocean that some profound convulsion had disturbed. All his life he'd been alone, and now he must be alone again, and this infinitely precious blessing that had come to him must be taken away almost at once.He felt the wave build higher and steeper to darken the sky, he felt the crest tremble and begin to spi..
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Philip Pullman |
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589b416
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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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Philip Pullman |
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ef972c7
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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.
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Philip Pullman |
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eb47ec2
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Lee saw the fireball and head through the roar in his ears Hester saying, "That's the last of 'em Lee." He said, or thought, "Those poor men didn't have to come to this, nor did we." She said, "We held 'em off. We held out. We're a-helping Lyra." Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died."
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Philip Pullman |
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ab82a9e
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This is what'll happen," she said, "and it's true, perfectly true. When you go out of here, all the particles that make you up will loosen and float apart, just like your daemons did. If you've seen people dying, you know what that looks like. But your daemons en't just nothing now; they're part of everything. All the atoms that were them, they've gone into the air and the wind and the trees and the earth and all the living things. They'll ..
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pullman
his-dark-materials
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Philip Pullman |
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6d26e35
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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. At that moment all Will's choices existed at once. But to keep them all in existence meant doing nothing. He had to choose, after all.
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Philip Pullman |
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49c6a54
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One moment several things are possible, the next moment only one happens, and the rest don't exist. Except that other worlds have sprung into being, on which the did happen.
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science
life
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Philip Pullman |
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114122e
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Her last conscious thought was disgust at life; her senses had lied to her. The world was not made of energy and delight but of foulness, betrayal, and lassitude. Living was hateful, and death was no better, and from end to end of the universe this was the first and last and only truth.
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life
truth
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Philip Pullman |
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8c4454c
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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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his-dark-materials
philip-pullman
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Philip Pullman |
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7a7f7ff
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But suppose your daemon settles in a shape you don't like? Well, then, you're discontented, en't you? There's plenty of folk as'd like to have a lion as a daemon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they're going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is. But it didn't seem to Lyra that she would ever grow up.
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self-awareness
self
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Philip Pullman |
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6aab4ac
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But Balthamos couldn't tell; he only knew that half his heart had been extinguished. He couldn't keep still: he flew up again, scouring the sky as if to seek out Baruch in this cloud or that, calling, crying, calling; and then he'd be overcome with guilt, and fly down to urge Will to hide and keep quiet, and promise to watch over him tirelessly; and then the pressure of his grief would crush him to the ground, and he'd remember every instan..
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Philip Pullman |
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2e75f0b
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It's like having to make a choice: a blessing or a curse. The one thing you can't do is choose neither.
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Philip Pullman |
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01a4c98
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I'm just trying to wake up - I'm so afraid of sleeping all my life and then dying - I want to wake up first. I wouldn't care if it was just for an hour, as long as I was properly alive and awake...
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Philip Pullman |
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055538b
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Do you think I could bear to live on after you died? Oh, Lyra, I'd follow you down to the world of the dead without thinking twice about it, just like you followed Roger; and that would be two lives gone for nothing, my life wasted like yours. No, we should spend our whole lifetimes together, good long busy lives, and if we can't spend them together, we... we'll have to spend them apart.
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Philip Pullman |
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7a4316c
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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.
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Philip Pullman |
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82050bb
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Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died.
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Philip Pullman |
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9f20408
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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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Philip Pullman |
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60b5a36
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his face bore an expression that mingled haughty disdain with a tender, ardent sympathy, as if he would love all things if only his nature could let him forget their defects.
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Philip Pullman |
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0baa5c3
|
The fact was that where Will is concerned, she was developing a new kind of sense, as if he were simply more in focus than anyone she'd known before. Everything about him was clear and close and immediate.
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Philip Pullman |
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8a61dbc
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Tirelessly they flew on and on, and tirelessly she kept pace. She felt a fierce joy possessing her, that she could command these immortal presences. And she rejoiced in her blood and flesh, in the rough pine bark she felt next to her skin, in the beat of her heart and the life of all her senses, and in the hunger she was feeling now, and in the presence of her sweet-voiced bluethroat daemon, and in the earth below her and the lives of every..
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joy
life
ruta-skadi
|
Philip Pullman |
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223ea2f
|
She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy? The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer. When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. He could find food, and show her how to reach Oxford, and those were powers that were useful, but he might still have been untrustworthy or cowardly. A murderer was a worthy companion. She felt as safe with him as she'd done with Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear.
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Philip Pullman |
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5bea5df
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there was a sort of embarrassment about storytelling that struck home powerfully about one hundred years ago, at the beginning of modernism. We see a similar reaction in painting and in music. It's a preoccupation suddenly with the surface rather than the depth. So you get, for example, Picasso and Braque making all kinds of experiments with the actual surface of the painting. That becomes the interesting thing, much more interesting than t..
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Philip Pullman |
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e2d1b70
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The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake.
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Philip Pullman |
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02f9d30
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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.
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Philip Pullman |