Thou Shalt Not is soon forgotten, but Once Upon a Time is forever.

We need to ensure that children are not forced to waste their time on barren rubbish.

And then what?" said her daemon sleepily. "Build what?" "The Republic of Heaven," said Lyra.

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

Tolkien seems to me reactionary, conservative, fearful of a modern world. Fearful of anything that isn't sanctioned by the passage of long eons of time. I think what I'm doing in His Dark Materials is politically the reverse of that.

The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake.

For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence