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All Quotes by author - Philip Pullman
" Adam and Eve are like imaginary numbers, like the square root of minus one... If you include it in your equation, you can calculate all manners of things, which cannot be imagined without it. "
Like
You
Without
" And before I'd got to the end of the first paragraph, I'd come up slap bang against a fundamental problem that still troubles me today whenever I begin a story, and it's this: where am I telling it from? "
End
First
Me
" Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature. "
Own
Argue
Anything
" Authors are not a special case, deserving of more sympathy than many other groups. We are a particular case of a general degradation of the quality of life, and we are not going to stop pointing it out, because we speak for many other groups as well. "
Speak
Sympathy
Life
" 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. "
Rest
World
People
" Comics are a wonderful form. You can do so much with it. "
Form
Comics
Much
" Education and health were always matters of charity. You educated children and you helped the sick because they were good things to do, not because you were going to make money out of them. If you let the money-making principle, the profit-seeking motive, anywhere near education and health, things go bad. "
Children
Education
Good
" Every government secretary of state or minister should jolly well go to the theatre, go to a concert, go to an art gallery, go to a museum, become somehow interested in these things. If they're not interested, they shouldn't be in government, full stop. "
Art
Government
Museum
" Everyone in the book's ecology, starting with the author and including the publisher, the distributor, the booksellers, the libraries, and ending up with the reader, should benefit from a healthy book trade. "
Book
Trade
Healthy
" Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it. "
Could
Everything
Meaning
" For a long time I thought I was a poet, but that's a high title to claim. "
Time
Thought
Long
" For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence. "
Writing
Silence
Music
" I don't like it when I see my books sold cheaply. "
I See
Sold
See
" If a nation allows its literary culture to die, it's a sign that it doesn't fundamentally care. "
Culture
Sign
Care
" If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day. "
Think
You
Day
" I had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction! "
Studying
Reading
Education
" I have a desk that I can raise or lower according to the state of my aching back. Sometimes I stand at it, and sometimes I have it high up to write at and sometimes a bit lower to type. "
Sometimes
I Can
Desk
" I have maintained a passionate interest in education, which leads me occasionally to make foolish and ill-considered remarks alleging that not everything is well in our schools. "
Me
Passionate
Education
" I like every individual editor, designer, marketing and publicity person I deal with, but I don't like what publishers, corporately, are doing to the ecology of the book world. It's damaging, and it should change. "
Doing
Change
Book
" I love all types of music - jazz, great pop music, world music and folk music - but the music I listen to most is piano music from the 18th, 19th and 20th century. Russian music in particular. "
Listen
Great
Jazz
" I love the way ravens fly; they are the most acrobatic and daring birds. "
Daring
Way
Most
" I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. "
Belief
Undermine
Trying
" I tried writing out a plot with the second or third novel I wrote, and it was so boring, so desperately boring. "
Plot
Boring
Wrote
" It should be a firmly established part of the curriculum that children should visit theatres and concert halls. "
Curriculum
Concert
Children
" I write in pen because it works. A fountain pen is no good for writing in the way I do because I'd have to decide, each time I stopped, how long I was likely to stop for in order to know whether or not to put the cap on. But I never know. So instead, I use a ballpoint - a Montblanc, to be precise - the most comfortably balanced pen I've ever found. "
Writing
Good
Know
" Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. "
Men
Pain
Love
" My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing. "
Only
Writing
Real
" My parents tolerated me reading comics because they knew I was also reading 'proper' books, too. "
Because
Me
Parents
" One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you. "
Time
Growing Up
Curious
" One handy piece of equipment, which I recommend to any writer of fiction, is a set of Myriorama cards. I consult them frequently. "
Equipment
Writer
Recommend
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