Literary modernism kind of grew out of a sense that, โOh my god! Iโm telling a story! Oh, that canโt be the case, because Iโm a clever person. Iโm a literary person! What am I going to do to distinguish myself? I know! Iโll write Ulysses.โ
Philip PullmanAll stories teach, whether the storyteller intends them to or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by. They teach it much more effectively than moral precepts and instructions.
Philip PullmanBut suppose your dรฆmon 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 dรฆmon 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.
Philip Pullman