The Sight Filled The Northern Sky; The Immensity Of It Was Scarcely Conceivable. As If From Heaven Itself, Great Curtains Of Delicate Light Hung And Trembled. Pale Green And Rose-pink, And As Transparent As The Most Fragile Fabric, And At The Bottom Edge A Profound Fiery Crimson Like The Fires Of Hell, They Swung And Shimmered Loosely With More Grace Than The Most Skillful Dancer.

-Philip Pullman

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The Sight Filled The

Philip Pullman

Topic

Fire

Light

Sight

More From Philip Pullman

Make This The Golden Rule, The Equivalent Of The Hippocratic Oath: Everything We Ask A Child To Do Should Be Worth Doing.

Children

Golden

Should

Lonely? I Don't Know. They Tell Me This Is Cold. I Don't Know What Cold Is, Because I Don't Freeze. So I Don't Know What Lonely Means Either. Bears Are Made To Be Solitary.

Lonely

Mean

Bears

For A Long Time I Thought I Was A Poet, But That's A High Title To Claim.

Long

Titles

Boots

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.

Jesus

Men

Littles

A Murderer Was A Worthy Companion.

Worthy

Companion

Murderer

He Meant The Kingdom Was Over, The Kingdom Of Heaven, It Was All Finished. We Shouldn't Live As If It Mattered More Than This Life In This World, Because Where We Are Is Always The Most Important Place.... We Have To Be All Those Difficult Things Like Cheerful And Kind And Curious And Patient, And We've Got To Study And Think And Work Hard, All Of Us, In All Our Different Worlds, And Then We'll Build... The Republic Of Heaven.

Hard Work

Thinking

Heaven

I Had Passed Through The Entire British Education System Studying Literature, Culminating In Three Years Of Reading English At Oxford, And They'd Never Told Me About Something As Basic As The Importance Of Point Of View In Fiction!

Reading

Years

Oxford

Gradually, At Various Points In Our Childhoods, We Discover Different Forms Of Conviction. There's The Rock-hard Certainty Of Personal Experience ("i Put My Finger In The Fire And It Hurt,"), Which Is Probably The Earliest Kind We Learn. Then There's The Logically Convincing, Which We Probably Come To First Through Maths, In The Context Of Pythagoras's Theorem Or Something Similar, And Which, If We First Encounter It At Exactly The Right Moment, Bursts On Our Minds Like Sunrise With The Whole Universe Playing A Great Chord Of C Major.

Hurt

Math

Science

But Think Of Adam And Eve Like An Imaginary Number, Like The Square Root Of Minus One: You Can Never See Any Concrete Proof That It Exists, But If You Include It In Your Equations, You Can Calculate All Manner Of Things That Couldn't Be Imagined Without It.

Science

Thinking

Squares

It Does Not Make Sense. It Cannot Exist. It's Impossible, And If It Isn't Impossible, It's Irrelevant, And If It Isn't Either Of Those Things, It's Embarrassing.

Doe

Impossible

Academic

There Is Time, And There Is Beyond Time. History Belongs To Time, But Truth Belongs To What Is Beyond Time. In Writing Of Things As They Should Have Been, You Are Letting Truth Into History. You Are The Word Of God.

Writing

Should Have

Truth Is

Read Like A Butterfly, Write Like A Bee.

Writing

Butterfly

Bees

There’s Been Terrible Things We Seen, En’t There? And More A Coming, More’n Likely. So I Think I’d Rather Not Know What’s In The Future. I’ll Stick To The Present.

Thinking

Sticks

Terrible

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.

Jesus

Character

Thinking

It's Only Through Honesty And Courage That Science Can Work At All. The Ptolemaic Understanding Of The Solar System Was Undermined And Corrected By The Constant Pressure Of More And More Honest Reporting.

Honesty

Hard Work

Science

The First Ghost To Leave The World Of The Dead Was Roger. He Took A Step Forward, And Turned To Look Back At Lyra, And Laughed In Surprise As He Found Himself Turning Into The Night, The Starlight, The Air. . .and Then He Was Gone, Leaving Behind Such A Vivid Little Burst Of Happiness.

Night

Air

Leaving

Iorek Byrnison: Can Is Not The Same As Must. Lyra Silvertongue: But If You Must And You Can, Then There's No Excuse.

No Excuses

Excuse

Ifs

But We Can Trust Him Roger, I Swear," She Said With A Final Effort,"because He's Will.

Effort

Finals

Roger

I'm With The Grimms On This: Stories For Young And Old. You Can't Characterize Them Any Better Than That.

Stories

Grimm

Young

She Found Out That Having Something To Do Prevented You From Feeling Seasick, And That Even A Job Like Scrubbing A Deck Could Be Satisfying, If It Was Done In A Seamanlike Way. She Was Very Taken With This Notion, And Later On She Folded The Blankets On Her Bunk In A Seamanlike Way, And Put Her Possessions In The Closet In A Seamanlike Way, And Used 'stow' Instead Of 'tidy' For The Process Of Doing So. After Two Days At Sea, Lyra Decided That This Was The Life For Her.

Inspirational

Funny

Jobs

I Was Born In Norwich In 1946, And Educated In England, Zimbabwe, And Australia, Before My Family Settled In North Wales.

Zimbabwe

Australia

England

You Are Dead- What Am I Speaking To?

If You Can't Think Of What To Write, Tough Luck; Write Anyway.

Writing

Thinking

Luck

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.

Writing

Stories

Way

And Then What?" Said Her Daemon Sleepily. "build What?" "the Republic Of Heaven," Said Lyra.

Heaven

Republic

Said

The Book Is Second Only To The Wheel As The Best Piece Of Technology Human Beings Have Ever Invented. A Book Symbolises The Whole Intellectual History Of Mankind; It's The Greatest Weapon Ever Devised In The War Against Stupidity.

War

Book

Technology

She Wondered Whether There Would Ever Come An Hour In Her Life When She Didn't Think Of Him -- Didn't Speak To Him In Her Head, Didn't Relive Every Moment They'd Been Together, Didn't Long For His Voice And His Hands And His Love. She Had Never Dreamed Of What It Would Feel Like To Love Someone So Much; Of All The Things That Had Astonished Her In Her Adventures, That Was What Astonished Her The Most. She Thought The Tenderness It Left In Her Heart Was Like A Bruise That Would Never Go Away, But She Would Cherish It Forever.

Heart

Adventure

Thinking

There Is Another Consequence Of Any Belief In A Single God, And That Is That It Is A Very Good Excuse For People To Behave Very Badly.

People

Belief

Excuse

Looking At Them Now, Thought Jim, You'd Never Believe They Weren't In Love With Each Other, And Not With A Hopeless, Doomed Obsession Like Poor Isabel Meredith. This Was What Love Ought To Be Like: Playful And Passionate And Teasing, And Dangerous, Too, With Sharp Intelligence In It.

Believe

Passionate

Hopeless

I Thought Physics Could Be Done To The Glory Of God, Till I Saw There Wasn’t Any God At All And That Physics Was More Interesting Anyway. The Christian Religion Is A Very Powerful And Convincing Mistake, That’s All.

Christian

Powerful

Mistake

Half A Dozen Brats Turned With Expressions Of Derision, And Lyra Threw Her Cigarette Down, Recognizing The Cue For A Fight. Everyone's Daemon Instantly Became Warlike: Each Child Was Accompanied By Fangs, Or Claws, Or Bristling Fur, And Pantalaimon, Contemptuous Of The Limited Imaginations Of These Gyptian Daemons, Became A Dragon The Size Of A Deer Hound.

Children

Fighting

Dragons

If You Want Something You Can Have It, But Only If You Want Everything That Goes With It, Including All The Hard Work And The Despair, And Only If You're Willing To Risk Failure.

Hard Work

Want Something

Risk

Every Little Increase In Human Freedom Has Been Fought Over Ferociously Between Those Who Want Us To Know More And Be Wiser And Stronger, And Those Who Want Us To Obey And Be Humble And Submit.

Humble

Stronger

Want

One Curious Thing About Growing Up Is That You Don't Only Move Forward In Time; You Move Backwards As Well, As Pieces Of Your Parents' And Grandparents' Lives Come To You.

Growing Up

Moving

Grandparent

I'll Be Looking For You, Will, Every Moment, Every Single Moment. And When We Do Find Each Other Again, We'll Cling Together So Tight That Nothing And No One'll Ever Tear Us Apart. Every Atom Of Me And Every Atom Of You... We'll Live In Birds And Flowers And Dragonflies And Pine Trees And In Clouds And In Those Little Specks Of Light You See Floating In Sunbeams... And When They Use Our Atoms To Make New Lives, They Wont' Just Be Able To Take One, They'll Have To Take Two, One Of You And One Of Me, We'll Be Joined So Tight.

Flower

Clouds

Light

If You Want To Write Anything That Works, You Have To Go With The Grain Of Your Talent, Not Against It. If Your Talent Is Inert And Sullen In The Face Of Business Or Politics...but Takes Fire At The Thought Of Ghosts And Vampires And Witches And Demons Then Feed The Flames, Feed The Flames.

Writing

Fire

Flames

Being A Practiced Liar Doesn't Mean You Have A Powerful Imagination. Many Good Liars Have No Imagination At All; It's That Which Gives Their Lies Such Wide-eyed Conviction.

Powerful

Liars

Lying

He Dared To Do What Men And Women Don't Even Dare To Think. And Look What He's Done Already: He's Torn Open The Sky, He's Opened The Way To Another World. Who Else Has Ever Done That? Who Else Could Think Of It?

Men

Thinking

Sky

I'm Just Trying To Wake Up - I'm So Afraid Of Sleeping All My Life And Then Dying - I Want To Wake Up First. I Wouldn't Care If It Was Just For An Hour, As Long As I Was Properly Alive And Awake.

Sleep

Long

Dying

All The History Of Human Life Has Been A Struggle Between Wisdom And Stupidity.

Struggle

Stupidity

Human Life

It's Not My Business To Remedy Deaths! It's My Business To Tell Stories. Lyra And The Other Heroines Didn't Come With Placards Saying, "make This A Feminist Story!" I'm Glad People Enjoy Seeing A Female Protagonist In A Big Adventure Story, But I Didn't Do It For Political Reasons.

Adventure

People

Feminist

Corruption And Envy And Lust For Power. Cruelty And Coldness. A Vicious Probing Curiousity. Pure, Poisonous, Toxic Malice. You Have Never From Your Earliest Years Shown A Shred Of Compassion For Sympathy Or Kindness Without Calculating How It Would Return To Your Advantage. You Have Tortured And Killed Without Regret Or Hesitation; You Have Betrayed And Intrigued And Gloried In Your Treachery. You Are A Cess-pit Of Moral Filth.

Kindness

Regret

Compassion

I Write Almost Always In The Third Person, And I Don't Think The Narrator Is Male Or Female Anyway. They're Both, And Young And Old, And Wise And Silly, And Sceptical And Credulous, And Innocent And Experienced, All At Once. Narrators Are Not Even Human - They're Sprites.

Wise

Silly

Writing

Even If It Means Oblivion, Friends, I'll Welcome It, Because It Won't Be Nothing. We'll Be Alive Again In A Thousand Blades Of Grass, And A Million Leaves; We'll Be Falling In The Raindrops And Blowing In The Fresh Breeze; We'll Be Glittering In The Dew Under The Stars And The Moon Out There In The Physical World, Which Is Our True Home And Always Was.

Stars

Fall

Home

I Think It's Perfectly Possible To Explain How The Universe Came About Without Bringing God Into It, But I Don't Know Everything, And There May Well Be A God Somewhere, Hiding Away. Actually, If He Is Keeping Out Of Sight, It's Because He's Ashamed Of His Followers And All The Cruelty And Ignorance They're Responsible For Promoting In His Name. If I Were Him, I'd Want Nothing To Do With Them.

Ignorance

Thinking

Sight

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 That Moment All Will's Choices Existed At Once. But To Keep Them All In Existence Meant Doing Nothing. He Had To Choose, After All.

Choices

Doing Nothing

Way

We Feel Cold, But We Don't Mind It, Because We Will Not Come To Harm. And If We Wrapped Up Against The Cold, We Wouldn't Feel Other Things, Like The Bright Tingle Of The Stars, Or The Music Of The Aurora, Or Best Of All The Silky Feeling Of Moonlight On Our Skin. It's Worth Being Cold For That.

Stars

Winter

Feelings

As Jane Austen Might Have Put It: It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged That Young Protagonists In Search Of Adventure Must Ditch Their Parents.

Writing

Adventure

Parent

I Am A Religious Person, Although I Am Not A Believer.

Religious

Believer

Persons

Seems To Me-" Lee Said, Feeling For The Words, "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.

Fighting

Giving

Feelings

We Have To Learn Everything We Do.

The Christian Religion Is A Very Powerful And Convincing Mistake.

Christian

Powerful

Mistake

But I Know That All The Things I Do Know Are Very Small Compared With The Things That I Don't Know.

Knows

True Education Flowers At The Point When Delight Falls In Love With Responsibility.

True Love

Falling In Love

Flower

But Suppose Your Dæmon 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 Dæmon 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.

Growing Up

Feelings

Lions

Do Not Lie To The Scholar.

Lying

Scholar

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.

Mother

Jesus

Father

I Have Maintained A Passionate Interest In Education, Which Leads Me Occasionally To Make Foolish And Ill-considered Remarks Alleging That Not Everything Is Well In Our Schools. My Main Concern Is That An Over-emphasis On Testing And League Tables Has Led To A Lack Of Time And Freedom For A True, Imaginative And Humane Engagement With Literature.

School

League

Passionate

And Then Serafina Understood Something For Which The Witches Had No Word: It Was The Idea Of Pilgrimage. She Understood Why These Beings Would Wait For Thousands Of Years And Travel Vast Distances In Order To Be Close To Something Important, And How They Would Feel Differently For The Rest Of Time, Having Been Briefly In Its Presence. That Was How These Creatures Looked Now, These Beautiful Pilgrims Of Rarefied Light, Standing Around The Girl With The Dirty-face And The Tartan Skirt And The Boy With The Wounded Hand Who Was Frowning In His Sleep.

Beautiful

Girl

Distance

The Specters Feast As Vampires Feast On Blood, But The Specters’ Food Is Attention. A Conscious And Informed Interest In The World. The Immaturity Of Children Is Less Attractive To Them.

Children

Blood

Vampire

You Going To Be A Scientist When You Grow Up?” That Sort Of Question Deserved A Blank Stare, Which It Got.

Growing Up

Scientist

Blank

Disney Is A Huge Presence When It Comes To Fairy Tales Because He’s Made Of Them Such Brilliant Artifacts In Terms Of Movie-making. But It’s Very Hard To Ignore What He’s Done To Them. I'm Not Interested In Denigrating Disney Or Even Commenting On Him Very Much. I'm More Interested In Seeing What I Can Do With The Stories Myself.

Stories

Done

Fairy Tale

I Feel With Some Passion That What We Truly Are Is Private, And Almost Infinitely Complex, And Ambiguous, And Both External And Internal, And Double- Or Triple- Or Multiply Natured, And Largely Mysterious Even To Ourselves; And Furthermore That What We Are Is Only Part Of Us, Because Identity, Unlike "identity", Must Include What We Do. And I Think That To Find Oneself And Every Aspect Of This Complexity Reduced In The Public Mind To One Property That Apparently Subsumes All The Rest ("gay", "black", "muslim", Whatever) Is To Be The Victim Of A Piece Of Extraordinary Intellectual Vulgarity.

Passion

Gay

Thinking

Thou Shalt Not Is Soon Forgotten, But Once Upon A Time Is Forever.

Forever

Once Upon A Time

Forgotten

Writing Is Tyranny ... But Reading Is Democracy.

Reading

Writing

Democracy

No,' He Said, 'memory's A Poor Thing To Have. It's Your Own Real Hair And Mouth And Arms And Eyes And Hands I Want. I Didn't Know I Could Ever Love Anything So Much.

Memories

Real

Eye

Was There Only One World After All Which Spent Its Time Dreaming Of Others?

Dream

World

A Professional Writer Is Someone Who Writes Just As Well When They're Not Inspired As When They Are.

Writing

Inspired

Wells

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.

Dark

Thinking

Long

My Mother Married Again After My Father's Death - Another Royal Air Force Officer, And A Very Different Kind Of Man. We Went To Australia When I Was Eight Or Nine. We Lived There For A Couple Of Years, And Then Came Back And Lived In North Wales For The Whole Of My Teenage Years... I Learned How To Write Poems Quite A Lot. I Just Had A Good Time Reading And Reading And Reading. So That's Where I Did Most Of My Growing Up.

Mother

Growing Up

Couple

And Think What Worrying Does: Has Anyone Ever Added A Single Hour To The Length Of His Life By Worrying About It?

Thinking

Worry

Doe

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.

Teacher

Real

Believe

The Intentions Of A Tool Are What It Does. A Hammer Intends To Strike, A Vise Intends To Hold Fast, A Lever Intends To Lift. They Are What It Is Made For. But Sometimes A Tool May Have Other Uses That You Don't Know. Sometimes In Doing What You Intend, You Also Do What The Knife Intends, Without Knowing.

Technology

Knives

Knowing

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.

Jobs

Fall

Angel

There's A Hunger For Stories In All Of Us, Adults Too. We Need Stories So Much That We're Even Willing To Read Bad Books To Get Them, If The Good Books Won't Supply Them.

Book

Adults

Needs

That's The Duty Of The Old, To Be Anxious On Behalf Of The Young. And The Duty Of The Young Is To Scorn The Anxiety Of The Old.

Maturity

Anxiety

Young

Men Pass In Front Of Our Eyes Like Butterflies, Creatures Of A Brief Season. We Love Them; They Are Brave, Proud, Beautiful, And Clever.

Beautiful

Clever

Butterfly

I Wanted To Avoid What Some Modern Tellers Have Done, Quite Legitimately, To Make Fairy Tales More Like Novels And Short Stories, To Characterize The Heroes And The Heroines Much More Than They Are Characterized In Grimm. I Like The Psychological Flatness Of Them, The Fact That They're More Like Masks Than Individuals.

Hero

Stories

Done

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.

Girl

Teacher

Children

What I Couldn't Help Noticing Was That I Learned More About The Novel In A Morning By Trying To Write A Page Of One Than I'd Learned In Seven Years Or So Of Trying To Write Criticism

Morning

Writing

Years

Lee Was Too Cool By Nature To Rage At Fate; His Manner Was To Raise An Eyebrow And Greet It Laconically.

Fate

Eyebrows

Rage

If There Is A War To Be Fought, We Don’t Consider Cost One Of The Factors In Deciding Whether Or Not To Fight.

War

Fighting

Cost

Lord, If I Thought You Were Listening, I'd Pray For This Above All: That Any Church Set Up In Your Name Should Remain Poor, And Powerless, And Modest. That It Should Wield No Authority Except That Of Love. That It Should Never Cast Anyone Out. That It Should Own No Property And Make No Laws. That It Should Not Condemn, But Only Forgive.

Names

Law

Forgiving

So Lyra And Her Daemon Turned Away From The World They Were Born In, And Looked Toward The Sun, And Walked Into The Sky.

Sky

World

Sun

...because Where We Are Is Always The Most Important Place.

Important

The Idea Hovered And Shimmered Delicately, Like A Soap Bubble, And She Dared Not Even Look At It Directly In Case It Burst. But She Was Familiar With The Way Of Ideas, And She Let It Shimmer, Looking Away, Thinking About Something Else.

Thinking

Ideas

Soap Bubbles

I Don't Profess Any Religion; I Don't Think It's Possible That There Is A God.... My Books Are About Killing God.

Book

Thinking

Killing

I Have Stolen Ideas From Every Book I Have Ever Read.

Book

Ideas

Stolen

Religion Grants Its Adherents Malign, Intoxicating And Morally Corrosive Sensations. Destroying Intellectual Freedom Is Always Evil, But Only Religion Makes Doing Evil Feel Quite So Good.

Evil

Freedom Of Speech

Intellectual

There Are Some Who Live By Every Rule And Cling Tightly To Their Rectitude Because They Fear Being Swept Away By A Tempest Of Passion, And There Are Others Who Cling To The Rules Because They Fear That There Is No Passion There At All, And That If They Let Go They Would Simply Remain Where They Are, Foolish And Unmoved; And They Could Bear That Least Of All. Living A Life Of Iron Control Lets Them Pretend To Themselves That Only By The Mightiest Effort Of Will Can They Hold Great Passions At Bay.

Letting Go

Passion

Iron

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.

Party

Stupidity

Mystery

If A Witch Needs Something, Another Witch Will Give It To Her. If There Is War To Be Fought, We Don't Consider Cost One Of The Factors In Deciding Whether Or Not It Is Right To Fight. Nor Do We Have Any Notion Of Honor. An Insult To A Bear Is A Deadly Thing. To Us...inconceivable. How Could You Insult A Witch? What Would It Matter If You Did?

War

Fighting

Giving

I Don't Expect Christians To See God As A Metaphor, But That's What He Is. Perhaps It Might Be Clearer To Call Him A Character In Fiction, And A Very Interesting One Too: One Of The Greatest And Most Complex Villains Of All - Savage, Petty, Boastful And Jealous, And Yet Capable Of Moments Of Tenderness And Extremes Of Arbitrary Affection - For David, For Example. But He's Not Real, Any More Than Hamlet Or Mr Pickwick Are Real. They Are Real In The Context Of Their Stories, But You Won't Find Them In The Phone Book.

After Modernism, Things Changed. Indeed, Modernism Sometimes Seems To Me Like An Equivalent Of The Fall. Remember, The First Thing Adam And Eve Did When They Ate The Fruit Was To Discover That They Had No Clothes On. They Were Embarrassed. Embarrassment Was The First Consequence Of The Fall. And Embarrassment Was The First Literary Consequence Of This Modernist Discovery Of The Surface. "am I Telling A Story? Oh My God, This Is Terrible. I Must Stop Telling A Story And Focus On The Minute Gradations Of Consciousness As They Filter Through Somebody's.

Fall

Discovery

Clothes

When He'd Sworn At Her And Been Sworn At In Return, They Became Great Friends.

Return

Great Friend

I Am A Strong Believer In The Tyranny, The Dictatorship, The Absolute Authority Of The Writer.

Strong

Writing

Authority

And Among Academicians, And Among Spirits. I Found Folly Everywhere, But There Were Grains Of Wisdom In Every Stream Of It. No Doubt There Was Much More Wisdom That I Failed To Recognize. Life Is Hard, Mr. Scoresby, But We Cling To It All The Same.

Life Is Hard

Doubt

Spirit

Then She Was Pressing Her Little Proud Broken Self Against His Face, As Close As She Could Get, And Then They Died.

Self

Broken

Proud

Lyra Learns To Her Great Cost That Fantasy Isn’t Enough. She Has Been Lying All Her Life, Telling Stories To People, Making Up Fantasies, And Suddenly She Comes To A Point Where That’s Not Enough. All She Can Do Is Tell The Truth. She Tells The Truth About Her Childhood, About The Experiences She Had In Oxford, And That Is What Saves Her. True Experience, Not Fantasy - Reality, Not Lies - Is What Saves Us In The End.

Lying

Reality

Oxford

All Writing Is Difficult. The Most You Can Hope For Is A Day When It Goes Reasonably Easily. Plumbers Don't Get Plumber's Block, And Doctors Don't Get Doctor's Block; Why Should Writers Be The Only Profession That Gives A Special Name To The Difficulty Of Working, And Then Expects Sympathy For It?

Block

Writing

Doctors

From What We Are, Spirit; From What We Do, Matter. Matter And Spirit Are One.

Matter

Spirit

I'm For Open-mindedness And Tolerance. I'm Against Any Form Of Fanaticism, Fundamentalism Or Zealotry, And This Certainty Of 'we Have The Truth.' The Truth Is Far Too Large And Complex. Nobody Has The Truth.

Tolerance

Truth Is

Form

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.

Christian

Strong

Children

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.

Stories

Odyssey

Iliad

She Had Asked: What Is He? A Friend Or An Enemy? The Alethiometer Answered: He Is A Murderer. When She Saw The Answer, She Relaxed At Once. He Could Find Food, And Show Her How To Reach Oxford, And Those Were Powers That Were Useful, But He Might Still Have Been Untrustworthy Or Cowardly. A Murderer Was A Worthy Companion. She Felt As Safe With Him As She'd Done With Iorek Byrnison The Armoured Bear.

Oxford

Enemy

Done

Do You Think I Could Bear To Live On After You Died? Oh, Lyra, I'd Follow You Down To The World Of The Dead Without Thinking Twice About It, Just Like You Followed Roger; And That Would Be Two Lives Gone For Nothing, My Life Wasted Like Yours. No, We Should Spend Our Whole Lifetimes Together, Good Long Busy Lives, And If We Can't Spend Them Together, We... We'll Have To Spend Them Apart.

Thinking

Two

Long

For Every Once Upon A Time There Must Be A Story To Follow, Because If A Story Doesn't, Something Else Will, And It Might Not Be As Harmless As A Story.

Once Upon A Time

Stories

Might

The Fact Was That Where Will Is Concerned, She Was Developing A New Kind Of Sense, As If He Were Simply More In Focus Than Anyone She'd Known Before. Everything About Him Was Clear And Close And Immediate.

Focus

Facts

Kind

I Got A Book Token For Christmas And Exchanged It For A Book Called A History Of Art, And That Book (which I Still Have-battered And Falling To Pieces) Became More Precious To Me Than Any Bible.

Art

Book

Fall

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.

Distance

Two

Example

If I'm Reading Something I Happen To Know And Gets It Wrong, I Just Don't Trust The Book Any More. What I Ask Of A Novel I'm Reading Is That It Should Know A Fraction More About The Things I Know Than I Do. When I'm Writing...i Ask Myself: Would I Be Convinced By This If I Read It? If I Knocked Against This Bit Of Scenery, Would It Feel Solid?

Book

Reading

Writing

She Longed For Cutlasses, Pistols, And Brandy; She Had To Make Do With Coffee, And Pencils, And Verbs.

Life

Coffee

Verbs

Sticks And Stones, I'll Break Yer Bones, But Names Ain't Worth A Quarrel.

Names

Stones

Sticks

Men And Women Are Moved By Tides Much Fiercer Than You Can Imagine, And They Sweep Us All Up Into The Current.

Men

Tides

Imagine

On A Cold, Fretful Afternoon In Early October, 1872, A Hansom Cab Drew Up Outside The Offices Of Lockhart And Selby, Shipping Agents, In The Financial Heart Of London, And A Young Girl Got Out And Paid The Driver. She Was A Person Of Sixteen Or So--alone, And Uncommonly Pretty. She Was Slender And Pale, And Dressed In Mourning, With A Black Bonnet Under Which She Tucked Back A Straying Twist Of Blond Hair That The Wind Had Teased Loose. She Had Unusually Dark Brown Eyes For One So Fair. Her Name Was Sally Lockhart; And Within Fifteen Minutes, She Was Going To Kill A Man.

Girl

Eye

Heart

When You Live For Many Hundreds Of Years, You Know That Every Opportunity Will Come Again.

Opportunity

Years

Knows

Being In Love Was Like China: You Knew It Was There, And No Doubt It Was Very Interesting, And Some People Went There, But I Never Would.

Love

Travel

Knowing

Everything Means Something.

Mean

His Dark Materials

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.

Philosophy

Way

You Choose

We Don't Need Lists Of Rights And Wrongs, Tables Of Do's And Don'ts: We Need Books, Time, And Silence. Thou Shalt Not Is Soon Forgotten, But Once Upon A Time Lasts Forever.

Book

Rights

Silence

I Don't Know Where My Ideas Come From, But I Know Where They Come To. They Come To My Desk, And If I'm Not There, They Go Away Again.

Writing

Ideas

Going Away

Lee Saw The Fireball And Head Through The Roar In His Ears Hester Saying, "that's The Last Of 'em Lee." He Said, Or Thought, "those Poor Men Didn't Have To Come To This, Nor Did We." She Said, "we Held 'em Off. We Held Out. We're A-helping Lyra." Then She Was Pressing Her Little Proud Broken Self Against His Face, As Close As She Could Get, And Then They Died.

Men

Self

Broken

I Wanted The Chance To Look Again At Very Famous Stories And See What Made Them Work Well, Whether There Were Any Ways In Which They Could Be Improved. Because The Great Thing About Fairy Tales And Folk Tales Is That There Is No Authentic Text.

Looks

Stories

Way

This Is The Value For Me Of Writing Books That Children Read. Children Aren't Interested In Your Appalling Self-consciousness. They Want To Know What Happens Next. They Force You To Tell A Story.

Children

Book

Writing

The Best Way To Get Kids To Read A Book Is To Say: 'this Book Is Not Appropriate For Your Age, And It Has All Sorts Of Horrible Things In It Like Sex And Death And Some Really Big And Complicated Ideas, And You're Better Off Not Touching It Until You're All Grown Up. I'm Going To Put It On This Shelf And Leave The Room For A While. Don't Open It.

Sex

Book

Kids

All Good Things Pass Away.

Passing Away

Good Things

Marisa! Marisa!” The Cry Was Torn From Lord Asriel, And With The Snow Leopard Beside Her, With A Roaring In Her Ears, Lyra’s Mother Stood And Found Her Footing And Leapt With All Her Heart, To Hurl Herself Against The Angel And Her Daemon And Her Dying Lover, And Seize Those Beating Wings, And Bear Them All Down Together Into The Abyss.

Mother

Heart

Angel

You'll Drift Apart, It's True, But You'll Be Out In The Open, Part Of Everything Alive Again.

Alive

Religion Begins In Story. Yes, It Does, Because Religion Is An Attempt To Make Sense Of What Is Incomprehensible To Us, What Is Inexplicable, What Is Awe-inspiring, What Is Frightening, What Moves Us To Great Wonder, And So On. That Is The Religious Impulse, And It Is Part Of Our Psychological Makeup -- Of Everyone's Psychological Makeup.

Religious

Moving

Makeup

Argue With Anything Else, But Don't Argue With Your Own Nature.

Arguing

Just Sort Of Relax Your Mind And Say Yes, It Does Hurt, I Know. Don't Try And Shut It Out.

Hurt

Mind

Trying

Tolkien, Who Created This Marvellous Vehicle, Doesn't Go Anywhere In It. He Just Sits Where He Is. What I Mean By That Is That He Always Seems To Be Looking Backwards, To A Greater And More Golden Past; And What's More He Doesn't Allow Girls Or Women Any Important Part In The Story At All. Life Is Bigger And More Interesting Than The Lord Of The Rings Thinks It Is.

Girl

Mean

Past

And Barely Ten Minutes Later The Soft Sound Of Wingbeats Came To Their Ears, And Balthamos Stood Up Eagerly. The Next Moment, The Two Angels Were Embracing, And Will, Gazing Into The Flames, Saw Their Mutual Affection. More Than Affection: They Loved Each Other With A Passion.

Love

Angel

Passion

We Need To Ensure That Children Are Not Forced To Waste Their Time On Barren Rubbish.

Children

Needs

Waste

To Get The Best Out Of Life Here ...good Grief. There's Plenty Of It About, So Indulge. Give Yourself Some Thing To Remember. Fall In Love. Fall Out Of Love. Gamble. Get Drunk. See How Long You Can Stay Awake. Go For Long Walks At Night. Discover What You're Afraid Of Doing, And Then Do It.

Falling In Love

Grief

Night

What Is Worth Having Is Worth Working For.

Her Last Conscious Thought Was Disgust At Life; Her Senses Had Lied To Her. The World Was Not Made Of Energy And Delight But Of Foulness, Betrayal, And Lassitude. Living Was Hateful, And Death Was No Better, And From End To End Of The Universe This Was The First And Last And Only Truth.

Betrayal

Energy

Delight

I Know Whom We Must Fight...it Is The Church. For All Its History, It's Tried To Suppress And Control Every Natural Impulse.that Is What The Church Does, And Every Church Is The Same: Control, Destroy, Obliterate Every Good Feeling.

Fighting

Feelings

Church

D'you Know How Embarrassing It Is To Mention Good And Evil In A Scientific Laboratory? Have You Any Idea? One Of The Reasons I Became A Scientist Was Not To Have To Think About That Kind Of Thing.

Thinking

Ideas

Evil

Tell Him, We Are Not Devils But We Have Friends Who Are.

Devil

Stories Are The Most Important Thing In The World. Without Stories, We Wouldn't Be Human Beings At All.

Important

Stories

World

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.

Children

Mean

Justice

I Seemed To Have Spent The Whole Time Either Reading, Which I Loved, Or Laughing, Which I Love, Or Fooling About, Which I Loved. There Was The Usual Teenage Angst: "nobody Understands Me" And "i'm The Only Genius In The World" And All That Stuff. But That Didn't Get Very Deep.

Teenage

Reading

Laughing

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.

Light

Darkness

Mind

The Moment In The Account Of Adam And Eve In The Book Of Genesis Is When They Realize They're Naked And Try And Cover Themselves With Fig Leaves. That Seemed To Me A Perfect Allegory Of What Happened In The 20th Century With Regard To Literary Modernism. Literary Modernism 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?...a Lot Of Modernism Does Seem To Come Out Of A Fear Of Being Thought An Ordinary Storyteller.

Clever

Book

Perfect

We Are All Subject To The Fates. But We Must Act As If We Are Not, Or Die Of Despair.

Fate

Destiny

Despair

Just Finished 'secrecy' - Truly Enthralling Both As A Love Story And As A Tale Of Suspense - But Much More Than Both.

Suspense

Stories

Love Story

Children Are Not Less Intelligent Than Adults; What They Are Is Less Informed.

Children

Intelligent

Adults

What Work Do I Have To Do Then?" Said Will, But Went On At Once, "no, On Second Thought, Don't Tell Me. I Shall Decide What I Do. If You Say My Work Is Fighting, Or Healing, Or Exploring, Or Whatever You Might Say, I'll Always Be Thinking About It. And If I Do End Up Doing That, I'll Be Resentful Because It'll Feel As If I Didn't Have A Choice, And If I Don't Do It, I'll Feel Guilty Because I Should. Whatever I Do, I Will Choose It, No One Else.

Healing

Fighting

Thinking

There's Some That Came Here Never Believing They Were Dead. They Insisted All The Way That They Were Alive, It Was A Mistake, Someone Would Have To Pay; Made No Difference. There's Others Who Longed To Be Dead When They Were Alive, Poor Souls; Lives Full Of Pain Or Misery; Killed Themselves For A Chance Of A Blessed Rest, And Found That Nothing Had Changed Except For The Worse, And This Time There Was No Escape; You Can't Make Yourself Alive Again.

Pain

Mistake

Believe

You Speak Of Destiny As If It Was Fixed.

Fate

Destiny

Speak

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.

Teacher

Mistake

Thinking

Human Beings Can't See Anything Without Wanting To Destroy It. That's Original Sin. And I'm Going To Destroy It. Death Is Going To Die.

Sin

Humans

Originals

She Was Riding A Bear! And The Aurora Was Swaying Above Them In Golden Arcs And Loops, And All Around Was The Bitter Arctic Cold And The Immense Silence Of The North.

Silence

Riding

Aurora

It’s Like Having To Make A Choice: A Blessing Or A Curse. The One Thing You Can’t Do Is Choose Neither.

Blessing

Choices

Curse

Tell Them Stories. They Need The Truth You Must Tell Them True Stories, And Everything Will Be Well, Just Tell Them Stories.

Needs

Stories

True Story

I've Been Surprised By How Little Criticism I've Got. Harry Potter's Been Taking All The Flak. I'm A Great Fan Of J.k. Rowling, But The People - Mainly From America's Bible Belt - Who Complain That Harry Potter Promotes Satanism Or Witchcraft Obviously Haven't Got Enough In Their Lives. Meanwhile, I've Been Flying Under The Radar, Saying Things That Are Far More Subversive Than Anything Poor Old Harry Has Said. My Books Are About Killing God.

Book

America

People

I Will Love You For Ever, Whatever Happens. Till I Die And After I Die, And When I Find My Way Out Of The Land Of The Dead I'll Drift About Forever, All My Atoms, Till I Find You Again.

Love You

Land

Forever

After Nourishment, Shelter And Companionship, Stories Are The Thing We Need Most In The World.

Book

Writing

Mind

I Told Him I Was Going To Betray You, And Betray Lyra, And He Believed Me Because I Was Corrupt And Full Of Wickedness; He Looked So Deep I Felt Sure He'd See The Truth. But I Lied Too Well. I Was Lying With Every Nerve And Fiber And Everything I'd Ever Done...i Wanted Him To Find No Good In Me, And He Didn't. There Is None.

Truth

Lying

Nerves

You Cannot Change What You Are, Only What You Do.

Change

Being Yourself

Life Changing

Everyone, From The Mother Superior To The Priests To My Parents--they Were So Upset And Reproachful...i Felt As If Something They All Passionately Believed In Depended On Me Carrying On With Something I Didn't.

Mother

Parent

Upset

Everything Has A Meaning, If Only We Could Read It.

His Dark Materials

Ifs

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.

Mind

Stories

Superstitions

I Stopped Believing There Was A Power Of Good And A Power Of Evil That Were Outside Us. And I Came To Believe That Good And Evil Are Names For What People Do, Not For What They Are.

Life

Believe

Names

You Don't Read It In The Sense Of Reading A Message; It Doesn't Work Like That. What's Happening Is That The Shadows Are Responding To The Attention You Pay Them.

Reading

Shadow

Attention

There Are Some Themes, Some Subjects, Too Large For Adult Fiction; They Can Only Be Dealt With Adequately In A Children's Book.

Children

Book

Adults

Both The Oblation Board And The Specters Of Indifference Are Bewitched By This Truth About Human Beings: That Innocence Is Different From Experience. The Oblation Board Fears And Hates Dust, And The Specters Feast On It, But It's Dust Both Of Them Are Obsessed By.

Hate

Dust

Different

Once Upon A Time' Lasts Forever.

Forever

Once Upon A Time

Lasts

My Books Are About Killing God.

Book

Killing

For A Human Being, Nothing Comes Naturally,' Said Grumman. 'we Have To Learn Everything We Do.

Inspirational

Students

Said

For That Reason You Can't Write With Music Playing, And Anyone Who Says He Can Is Either Writing Badly, Or Not Listening To The Music, Or Lying. You Need To Hear What You're Writing, And For That You Need Silence

Lying

Writing

Silence

If A Coin Comes Down Heads, That Means That The Possibility Of Its Coming Down Tails Has Collapsed. Until That Moment The Two Possibilities Were Equal. But On Another World, It Does Come Down Tails. And When That Happens, The Two Worlds Split Apart.

Mean

Two

Doe

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.

Jobs

Angel

Stories

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.

Paradise

Fairy Tale

Ulysses

The Great Thing About Fairy Tales And Folk Tales Is That There Is No Authentic Text.

Fairy Tale

Fairy

Great Things

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.

Ideas

Imagination

Urban

The Fairy Tale Is In A Perpetual State Of Becoming And Alteration. To Keep To One Version Or One Translation Alone Is To Put Robin Redbreast In A Cage.

Robins

Becoming

Cages

When It Comes To Telling Children Stories, They Don’t Need Simple Language. They Need Beautiful Language.

Beautiful

Children

Simple

It Takes Long Practice, Yes. You Have To Work. Did You Think You Could Snap Your Fingers, And Have It As A Gift? What Is Worth Having Is Worth Working For.

Thinking

Practice

Long

Life Is Hard . . . But We Cling To It All The Same

Life Is Hard

Life Is

Hard

What I Do Say Is That I Can Write Verse, And That The Writing Of Verse In Strict Form Is The Best Possible Training For Writing Good Prose

Writing

Training

Form

We Are All Subject To The Fates. But We Must All Act As If We Are Not, Or Die Of Despair...death Will Sweep Through All The Worlds; It Will Be The Triumph Of Despair, Forever. The Universes Will All Become Nothing More Than Interlocking Machines, Blind And Empty Of Thought, Feeling, Life...

Fate

Forever

Feelings

I Am A Story Teller. If I Wanted To Send A Message I Would Have Written A Sermon.

Writing

Stories

Messages

We Have To Build The Republic Of Heaven Where We Are, Because For Us There Is No Elsewhere.

Heaven

Republic

His Dark Materials

As For What It's Against - The Story Is Against Those Who Pervert And Misuse Religion, Or Any Other Kind Of Doctrine With A Holy Book And A Priesthood And An Apparatus Of Power That Wields Unchallengeable Authority, In Order To Dominate And Suppress Human Freedoms.

Book

Order

Doctrine

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.

Cutting

Ordinary

Doe

Maybe Sometimes We Don't Do The Right Thing Because The Wrong Thing Looks More Dangerous, And We Don't Want To Look Scared, So We Go And Do The Wrong Thing Just Because It's Dangerous. We're More Concerned With Not Looking Scared Than With Judging Right.

Fear

Judging

Looks

Imagination Is A Form Of Seeing

Science

Imagination

Form

Long Before Writing, People Were Telling Each Other Stories And The Audiobook Goes All The Way Back To That Tradition.

Writing

Long

People

You Don't Win Races By Wishing, You Win Them By Running Faster Than Everyone Else Does.

Running

Winning

Race

We Measure The Value Of A Civilized Society By The Number Of #‎ Libraries It Opens, Not The Number It Closes Down.

Numbers

Library

Civilized Society

All Things From The North Are Devilish.

All Things

Devilish

'thou Shalt Not' Might Reach The Head, But It Takes 'once Upon A Time' To Reach The Heart.

Heart

Once Upon A Time

Might

All 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.

Stories

World

Morality

My Only Real Claim To Anyone's Attention Lies In My Writing

Real

Lying

Writing

People Should Decide On The Books' Meanings For Themselves. They'll Find A Story That Attacks Such Things As Cruelty, Oppression, Intolerance, Unkindness, Narrow-mindedness, And Celebrates Love, Kindness, Open-mindedness, Tolerance, Curiosity, Human Intelligence.

Kindness

Book

People

Symbols And Emblems Were Everywhere. Buildings And Pictures Were Designed To Be Read Like Books. Everything Stood For Something Else; If You Had The Right Dictionary, You Could Read Nature Itself. It Was Hardly Surprising To Find Philosophers Using The Symbolism Of Their Time To Interpret Knowledge That Came From A Mysterious Source.

Book

Symbolism

Philosopher

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.”

Clever

Writing

Stories

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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