Philip Pullman Quotes

Long before I learned to do a sum in arithmetic or describe the shape of the earth, Miss Sullivan had taught me to find beauty in the fragrant woods, in every blade of grass, and in the curves and dimples of my baby sister's hand.

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.

It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.

If I could put my hand on the north star, would it be as beautiful? The sea is lovely, but when we bathe in it the beauty forsakesall the near water. For the imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time.

In the glare of your mind, be modest. And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.

The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show. A companion with whom I was sailing one very windy but bright moonlight night, when the stars were few and faint, thought that a man could get along with them,-though he was considerably reduced in his circumstances,-that they were a kind of bread and cheese that never failed.

If you never saw the stars, candles were enough.

The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.

The nude alone is well dressed

The frost makes a flower, the dew makes a star.

Get close to grass and you’ll see a star.

There is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset.

His lips tasted cool and sharp, peppermint, winter, but his hands, soft on the back of my neck, promised long days and summer and forever.

The delights of sight and hearing and touch will bear thy delight.

Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.

It is in the darkest skies that stars are best seen.

I feel like the earth, astonished at fragrance borne in the air, made pregnant with mystery from a drop of rain.

Focus Not on Having Less or Having More, But on Wanting What You Have.

The aesthetic event is something as evident, as immediate, as indefinable as love, the taste of fruit, of water. We feel poetry as we feel the closeness of a woman, or as we feel a mountain or a bay. If we feel it immediately, why dilute it with other words, which no doubt will be weaker than our feelings?

I had a great dislike to the annoyances entailed by baggage; and it was always with some feeling of elation that I cut myself free from everything but what I could carry about me. Like children, portmanteaus and trunks are hostages to fortune.

The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.

If it were not for the outside world, we would have no inside world to understand things by. Least of all could we understand God without these millions of sights and sounds and scents and motions, weaving their endless harmonies. They come out of His heart to let us know a little of what is in it.

Enjoy everything. Need nothing.

He loved possessions, not masses of them, but a select few that he did not part with.They gave a man self-respect. Not ostentation but quality, and the love that cherished the quality. Possessions reminded him that he existed, and made him enjoy his existence. It was as simple as that. And wasn' t that worth something? He existed.

The natural is so awesome that we need not go beyond it.