Itโs like having to make a choice: a blessing or a curse. The one thing you canโt do is choose neither.
Philip PullmanThis is the value for me of writing books that children read. Children aren't interested in your appalling self-consciousness. They want to know what happens next. They force you to tell a story.
Philip PullmanThere is another consequence of any belief in a single god, and that is that it is a very good excuse for people to behave very badly.
Philip PullmanI don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God.... My books are about killing God.
Philip PullmanI don't expect Christians to see God as a metaphor, but that's what he is. Perhaps it might be clearer to call him a character in fiction, and a very interesting one too: one of the greatest and most complex villains of all - savage, petty, boastful and jealous, and yet capable of moments of tenderness and extremes of arbitrary affection - for David, for example. But he's not real, any more than Hamlet or Mr Pickwick are real. They are real in the context of their stories, but you won't find them in the phone book.
Philip PullmanSymbols and emblems were everywhere. Buildings and pictures were designed to be read like books. Everything stood for something else; if you had the right dictionary, you could read Nature itself. It was hardly surprising to find philosophers using the symbolism of their time to interpret knowledge that came from a mysterious source.
Philip Pullman