Quotes from work
His Dark Materials trilogy

His Dark Materials is an epic trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman consisting of Northern Lights , The Subtle Knife , and The Amber Spyglass . It follows the coming of age of two children, Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, as they wander through a series of parallel universes. The novels have won a number of awards, including the Carnegie Medal in 1995 for Northern Lights and the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year for The Amber Spyglass. In 2003, the trilogy was ranked third on the BBC’s The Big Read poll.His Dark Materials has been marketed to young adults, though Pullman wrote with no target audience in mind. The fantasy elements include witches and armoured polar bears; the trilogy also alludes to concepts from physics, philosophy, and theology. It functions in part as a retelling and inversion of John Milton's epic Paradise Lost, with Pullman commending humanity for what Milton saw as its most tragic failing, original sin. The series has attracted controversy for its criticism of religion.

“"That light," said the Chaplain, "is it going up or coming down?"
"It's coming down," said Lord Asriel, "but it isn't light. It's Dust."
Something in the way he said it made Lyra imagine dust with a capital letter, as if this wasn't ordinary dust. The reaction of the Scholars confirmed her feeling, because Lord Asriel's words caused a sudden collective silence, followed by gasps of incredulity.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 1 : The Decanter of Tokay

“I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that's an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Will and Mary in Ch. 33 : Marzipan
His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000)
Context: "When you stopped believing in God, 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 people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that's an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels."

“I don’t suppose that was a good thing for them to say. You might not have believed in angels.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Will and Mary in Ch. 33 : Marzipan
His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000)
Context: They lay back, well fed and comfortable in the flower-scented night, and listened to Mary tell her story.
She began just before she first met Lyra, telling them about the work she was doing at the Dark Matter Research group, and the funding crisis. How much time she’d had to spend asking for money, and how little time there’d been left for research!
But Lyra’s coming had changed everything, and so quickly: within a matter of days she’d left her world altogether.
"I did as you told me," she said. "I made a program — that’s a set of instructions — to let the Shadows talk to me through the computer. They told me what to do. They said they were angels, and — well…"
"If you were a scientist," said Will, "I don’t suppose that was a good thing for them to say. You might not have believed in angels."
"Ah, but I knew about them. I used to be a nun, you see. 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."

“Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials

“Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 15 : Bloodmoss
Context: "You fought for the knife?"
"Yes, but — "
"Then you're a warrior. That's what you are. Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature."
Will knew that the man was speaking the truth. But it wasn't a welcome truth. It was heavy and painful. The man seemed to know that, because he let Will bow his head before he spoke again.
"There are two great powers," the man said, "and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
"And now those two powers are lining up for battle. And each of them wants that knife of yours more than anything else. You have to choose, boy. We've been guided here, both of us — you with the knife, and me to tell you about it."

“That is how it seems…. But we can’t read the darkness, Mr. Scoresby. It is more than possible that I might be wrong.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 18 : Fog and Ice

“As I understand it, the Holy Church teaches that there are two worlds: the world of everything we can see and hear and touch, and another world, the spiritual world of heaven and hell. Barnard and Stokes were two — how shall I put it — renegade theologians who postulated the existence of numerous other worlds like this one, neither heaven nor hell, but material and sinful. They are there, close by, but invisible and unreachable.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

The Master of Jordan College to the Librarian, in Ch. 2 : The Idea of North
His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995)

“On, said the alethiometer. Farther, higher.
So on they climbed.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 15 : Bloodmoss

“She is the goddess of the dead. She comes to you smiling and kindly, and you know it is time to die.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 18 : Fog and Ice

“The security services are alarmed. Every nation that does research into fundamental physics — what we call experimental theology — is turning to its scientists urgently to discover what's going on. Because they know that something is happening. And they suspect it has to do with other worlds.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Sir Charles to Mrs. Coulter in Ch. 9 : Theft
His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)

“Will moved on grimly, screwing up his eyes against the glare, ignoring the worsening pain from his hand, and finally reaching a state in which movement alone was good and stillness bad, so that he suffered more from resting than from toiling on. And since the failure of the witches' spell to stop his bleeding, he thought they were regarding him with fear, too, as if he was marked by some curse greater than their own powers.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 15 : Bloodmoss

“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.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 21 : Lord Asriel's Welcome

“The first ghosts trembled with hope, and their excitement passed back like a ripple over the long line behind them, young children and aged parents alike looking up and ahead with delight and wonder as the first stars they had seen for centuries shone through into their poor starved eyes.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 26 : The Abyss

“What work have I got 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 else.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

“Then you have already taken the first steps toward wisdom,” said Xaphania.
Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 37 : The Dunes

“Dark matter is what my research team is looking for. No one knows what it is. There's more stuff out there in the universe than we can see, that's the point. We can see the stars and the galaxies and the things that shine, but for it all to hang together and not fly apart, there needs to be a lot more of it — to make gravity work, you see. But no one can detect it. So there are lots of different research projects trying to find out what it is, and this is one of them. … We think it's some kind of elementary particle. Something quite different from anything discovered so far. But the particles are very hard to detect.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Dr. Mary Malone, in Ch. 4 : Trepanning
His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)

“Lyra has a part to play in all this, and a major one. The irony is that she must do it all without realizing what she's doing. She can be helped, though, and if my plan with the Tokay had succeeded, she would have been safe for a little longer. I would have liked to spare her a journey to the North.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

The Master to the Librarian, in Ch. 2 : The Idea of North
His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995)

“She soon found the door the alethiometer had told her about. The sign on it said DARK MATTER RESEARCH UNIT, and under it someone had scribbled R. I. P. Another hand had added in pencil DIRECTOR: LAZARUS.
Lyra made nothing of that. She knocked, and a woman's voice said, "Come in."”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 4 : Trepanning

“Do not lie to the Scholar.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

The alethiometer to Lyra, in Ch. 4 : Trepanning
His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)

“The lizard dragged the priest’s body back to her nest, and her children feasted very well. As for the rifle, it lay in the grass where Father Gomez had laid it down, quietly turning to rust.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 36 : The Broken Arrow

“Lyra and her dæmon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

First line, introducing Lyra Belacqua (also known as Lyra Silvertongue), in Ch. 1 : The Decanter of Tokay
His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995)