A professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they're not inspired as when they are.

'Thou shalt not' might reach the head, but it takes 'Once upon a time' to reach the heart.

I think it's perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don't know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it's because he's ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they're responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I'd want nothing to do with them.

The intentions of a tool are what it does. A hammer intends to strike, a vise intends to hold fast, a lever intends to lift. They are what it is made for. But sometimes a tool may have other uses that you don't know. Sometimes in doing what you intend, you also do what the knife intends, without knowing.

The fairy tale is in a perpetual state of becoming and alteration. To keep to one version or one translation alone is to put robin redbreast in a cage.

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

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.