Latest Philip Pullman Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I look at the state of the American politics and I scratch my head in wonder. How can the Republican Party, any party, have fallen into to such a state of self-destructiveness - self-destructive stupidity? How is it possible? I don't know. It's an absolute mystery to me.

  Philip Pullman

  Party, Stupidity, Mystery

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• The great thing about fairy tales and folk tales is that there is no authentic text.

  Philip Pullman

  Fairy Tale, Fairy, Great Things

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• 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.

  Philip Pullman

  Dark, Thinking, Long

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• The way you speak of the characters in your story shows what you think of the values of conservatives‚ or evolution, for example. It shows where your moral center is. So you are in the message business whether you like it or not.

  Philip Pullman

  Character, Thinking, Example

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• I'm perfectly happy about being superstitious and atheistic.

  Philip Pullman

  Atheistic, Superstitious

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• A story, to me, has a particular sprite, like the angel of the spirit of that story - and it's my job to attend to what it wants to do. When I tell the story of Cinderella, the sprite does not want me to make it into an allegory of the fall of communism. The sprite would be unhappy if I did that.

  Philip Pullman

  Jobs, Fall, Angel

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• Well, I have an idea, usually a visual image of some sort. A setting. A particular, I don't know, urban scene, a particular time of day. Something that grips my imagination for some reason.

  Philip Pullman

  Ideas, Imagination, Urban

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• The e-book revolution has made it very easy to pay writers a good deal less than what their work is worth. I do strongly believe that we writers ought to hold out for much better royalties.

  Philip Pullman

  Book, Believe, Pay

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• One of the ways in which writers most show their inventiveness is in the things they tell us about how they write. Generally speaking, I don't like to make a plan before I've written a story. I find it kills the story - deadens it, makes it uninteresting. Unless I'm surprised by something in a story, the reader's not going to be surprised either.

  Philip Pullman

  Writing, Stories, Way

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• I'm superstitious about the paper that I use, for example. I've written all my novels on a paper of a particular size with lines of a particular distance apart and with two holes in the paper for the folder clip.

  Philip Pullman

  Distance, Two, Example

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• A story, to me, has a particular sprite, like the angel of the spirit of that story - and it's my job to attend to what it wants to do.

  Philip Pullman

  Jobs, Angel, Stories

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November 2012.

• The state of mind which I put myself when I tell a story is one in which superstition flourishes very easily. And I welcome that because it helps me.

  Philip Pullman

  Mind, Stories, Superstitions

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• The crucifixion saved him [Jesus]. He never had to deal with the fact that the kingdom of God wasn't ever going to come. His disciples, of course, had to deal with it, and little by little they had to realize that it's a metaphorical thing. Well, that's not what Jesus meant. I'm fairly sure he meant it literally. But he must have been the most fascinating man.

  Philip Pullman

  Jesus, Men, Littles

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• If we all gave all our goods to the poor, the church would fall apart. If we all hated our father and mother, as Jesus told us to, there'd be an end of the church's emphasis on the family as being the one important thing holding the whole society together. There are all sorts of ways in which the church's teachings contradict directly what Jesus says in the Gospel.

  Philip Pullman

  Mother, Jesus, Father

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• All the stories of the Bible that I know came to me first from my grandfather's lips... He would see stories in everything. He told stories very easily and very generously, so I loved him for that. He was a simple man, a Victorian; he was born in 1890-something. He saw no reason and had never seen any reason to question his Christian faith. His faith was strong and simple and that's it. And I, like his other grandchildren and the children in his parish, sheltered underneath it.

  Philip Pullman

  Christian, Strong, Children

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November 2012.

• He's [Jesus] the most fascinating character in history, really - the character who's made more difference to the world than anyone since him. I daresay that Muslims would say Muhammad was that character, but I think Jesus had a sort of 600-year start on him.

  Philip Pullman

  Jesus, Character, Thinking

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• I don't see any sign of God in this world, in the place where we live and things we know. It can all be explained to my mind perfectly satisfactorily without God. But in the great darkness beyond this little spark of light where I live, of course there may be all kinds of things. There may be a god. So I'm really an agnostic.

  Philip Pullman

  Light, Darkness, Mind

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times.

  Philip Pullman

  Stories, Odyssey, Iliad

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• Teachers often make the mistake of thinking they're the boss of the class; they're not. The boss of the class is sitting down there somewhere.

  Philip Pullman

  Teacher, Mistake, Thinking

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• The range of individuality in children is infinite, but every class of children seemed to have the same groups. And there was a chief girl and a chief boy - a girl that all the other girls of that age looked up to and imitated and a boy that all the boys looked up to and imitated. I realized that if I got them on my side and exclusively taught them for a couple of weeks, maybe for the first full term, then I wouldn't have any trouble. Teachers often make the mistake of thinking they're the boss of the class; they're not. The boss of the class is sitting down there somewhere.

  Philip Pullman

  Girl, Teacher, Children

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November 2012.

• My real purpose in telling middle-school students stories was to practice telling stories. And I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times. And the way I would justify it to the head teacher if he came in or to any parents who complained was, look, I'm telling these great stories because they're part of our cultural heritage. I did believe that.

  Philip Pullman

  Teacher, Real, Believe

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• A lot of modernism does seem to come out of a fear of being thought an ordinary storyteller. So they tell it backwards and they tell it in the present tense and they cut loose the pages and shuffle them around - all that kind of stuff.

  Philip Pullman

  Cutting, Ordinary, Doe

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• The justice of it seems to children correct and right - I mean, we laugh at it! We underestimate children's ability to know what is a story and what isn't.

  Philip Pullman

  Children, Mean, Justice

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• Because the great thing about fairy tales and folk tales is that there is no authentic text. It's not like the text of Paradise Lost or James Joyce's Ulysses, and you have to adhere to that exact text.

  Philip Pullman

  Paradise, Fairy Tale, Ulysses

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2012.

• Literary modernism kind of grew out of a sense that, “Oh my god! I’m telling a story! Oh, that can’t be the case, because I’m a clever person. I’m a literary person! What am I going to do to distinguish myself? I know! I’ll write Ulysses.”

  Philip Pullman

  Clever, Writing, Stories

  "His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. November 2012.