Quotes from book
Northern Lights

Northern Lights

Philip Pullman Original title Northern Lights (British English, 1995)

Northern Lights is a young-adult fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, published by Scholastic UK in 1995. Set in a parallel universe, it features the journey of Lyra Belacqua to the Arctic in search of her missing friend, Roger Parslow, and her imprisoned uncle, Lord Asriel, who has been conducting experiments with a mysterious substance known as "Dust".

“When you live for many hundreds of years, you know that every opportunity will come again.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“You speak of destiny as if it was fixed.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“You cannot change what you are, only what you do.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

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

“That's the duty of the old,' said the Librarian, 'to be anxious on the behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.'

They sat for a while longer, and then parted, for it was late, and they were old and anxious.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“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 wracked with pain.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“When he'd sworn at her and been sworn at in return, they became great friends.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“Lonely? I don't know. They tell me this is cold. I don't know what cold is, because I don't freeze. So I don't know what lonely means either. Bears are made to be solitary.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“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.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“That’s the duty of the old,” said the Librarian, “to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

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

“All good things pass away.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“You don't read it in the sense of reading a message; it doesn't work like that. What's happening is that the Shadows are responding to the attention you pay them.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“Human beings can't see anything without wanting to destroy it. That's original sin. And I'm going to destroy it. Death is going to die.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Variant: Human beings can’t see anything without wanting to destroy it, Lyra. That’s original sin.
Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 21 : Lord Asriel's Welcome

“Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all;”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995), Ch. 15 : The Dæmon Cages
Context: Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all; it's that which gives their lies such wide-eyed conviction.

“Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, and clever.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“If there is a war to be fought, we don’t consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not to fight.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“The idea hovered and shimmered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in case it burst. But she was familiar with the way of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“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.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not,” said the witch, “or die of despair.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

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

“Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

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