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

When it comes to telling children stories, they don’t need simple language. They need beautiful language.

Because the great thing about fairy tales and folk tales is that there is no authentic text. It's not like the text of Paradise Lost or James Joyce's Ulysses, and you have to adhere to that exact text.

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.

But suppose your dæmon 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 dæmon 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.

I don't know where my ideas come from, but I know where they come to. They come to my desk, and if I'm not there, they go away again.

I will love you for ever, 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.