Philip Pullman

"Will considered what to do. When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don’t take are snuffed out like candles, as if they’d never existed. At the moment all Will’s choices existed at once.…"

"The first ghosts trembled with hope, and their excitement passed back like a ripple over the long line behind them, young children and aged parents alike looking up and ahead with delight and wonder a…"

"Seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed."

"“We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not,” said the witch, “or die of despair."

"Will darted back to the gutter, and picked up the knife, and the fight was over. The young man, cut and battered, clambered up the step, and saw Will standing above him holding the knife; he stared wi…"

"It lay heavily in her hands, the crystal face gleaming, the golden body exquisitely machined. It was very like a clock, or a compass, for there were hands pointing to places around the dial, but inste…"

"“Sisters,” she began, “let me tell you what is happening, and who it is that we must fight. It is the Magisterium, the Church. For all its history—and that’s not long by our lives, but it’s many, many…"

"On an unseasonably, uncomfortably, unnaturally warm day in mid-October I sit here trying not to think about global warming. But it's difficult. Is this fear going to pass away like the other fears I r…"