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" I tried writing out a plot with the second or third novel I wrote, and it was so boring, so desperately boring. "
Philip Pullman
Plot
Boring
Wrote
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" The only instrument I play myself is the ukulele. "
Philip Pullman
Only
Play
Instrument
" Theatre is one of those things that children will love if they're helped to get there to see it. No child will find his or her own way to the theatre. "
Philip Pullman
Children
Child
Theatre
" What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose. "
Philip Pullman
Say
Good
Best
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Doing
Change
Book
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Writing
Good
Know
" I don't like it when I see my books sold cheaply. "
Philip Pullman
I See
Sold
See
" 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! "
Philip Pullman
Studying
Reading
Education
" 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
Silence
Forever
Need
" I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. "
Philip Pullman
Belief
Undermine
Trying
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Speak
Sympathy
Life
" Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature. "
Philip Pullman
Own
Argue
Anything
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
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. "
Philip Pullman
Equipment
Writer
Recommend
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Think
You
Day
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Art
Government
Museum
" If a nation allows its literary culture to die, it's a sign that it doesn't fundamentally care. "
Philip Pullman
Culture
Sign
Care
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Me
Passionate
Education
" You're lacking a human dimension of some sort if you're not interested in the arts. "
Philip Pullman
Human
Arts
You
" It should be a firmly established part of the curriculum that children should visit theatres and concert halls. "
Philip Pullman
Curriculum
Concert
Children
" My parents tolerated me reading comics because they knew I was also reading 'proper' books, too. "
Philip Pullman
Because
Me
Parents
" My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing. "
Philip Pullman
Only
Writing
Real
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Book
Trade
Healthy
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Children
Education
Good
" What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism. "
Philip Pullman
Page
Morning
Criticism
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Rest
World
People
" Possibly because I earn my living as a writer of fiction and possibly because it's just the sensible thing to do, I like to pay attention to everything I come across, including things that evoke the uncanny or the mysterious. "
Philip Pullman
Attention
Living
Mysterious
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Like
You
Without
" 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. "
Philip Pullman
Listen
Great
Jazz
" The arts are beyond price; they're beyond value. They're of incalculable worth in what it means to be a human being. "
Philip Pullman
Worth
Value
Human
" I love the way ravens fly; they are the most acrobatic and daring birds. "
Philip Pullman
Daring
Way
Most