The range of individuality in children is infinite, but every class of children seemed to have the same groups. And there was a chief girl and a chief boy - a girl that all the other girls of that age looked up to and imitated and a boy that all the boys looked up to and imitated. I realized that if I got them on my side and exclusively taught them for a couple of weeks, maybe for the first full term, then I wouldn't have any trouble. Teachers often make the mistake of thinking they're the boss of the class; they're not. The boss of the class is sitting down there somewhere.
Philip PullmanNo,' he said, 'memory's a poor thing to have. It's your own real hair and mouth and arms and eyes and hands I want. I didn't know I could ever love anything so much.
Philip PullmanJust sort of relax your mind and say yes, it does hurt, I know. Don't try and shut it out.
Philip PullmanEven if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it, because it won't be nothing. We'll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves; we'll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze; we'll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, which is our true home and always was.
Philip Pullman...when all the openings were closed, then the worlds would all be restored to their proper relations with one another, Lyraโs Oxford and Willโs would lie over each other again, like transparent images on two sheets of film being moved closer and closer until they mergedโalthough they would never truly touch.
Philip Pullman