Philip Pullman: The Book of Dust, Book 1: La Belle Sauvage

He was liked when noticed, but not noticed much, and that did him no harm either.


Once we use the word spiritual, we don’t have to explain anymore, because it belongs to the Church then, and no one can question it.


Consciousness is a perfectly normal property of matter, like mass or anbaric charge; that there is a field of consciousness which pervades the entire universe, and which makes itself apparent most fully – we believe – in human beings.


It was the loneliness of his death that upset Malcolm most.


When it started to rain, so she went inside and made some coffee and did what she had never done in her life: tried the newspaper crossword. “What a stupid exercise,” said her dæmon after five minutes. “Words belong in contexts, not pegged out like biological specimens.