Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman CBE, FRSLis an English writer. He is the author of several best-selling books, most notably the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials and the fictionalised biography of Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. In 2008, The Times named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945"...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth19 October 1946
being-in-love interesting people
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. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit.
war book technology
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.
humble stronger want
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.
atheistic superstitious
I'm perfectly happy about being superstitious and atheistic.
suspense stories love-story
Just finished 'Secrecy' - truly enthralling both as a love story and as a tale of suspense - but much more than both.
writing thinking luck
If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway.
stars fall home
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.
block writing doctors
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?
book believe pay
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.
writing ideas going-away
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.
tolerance truth-is form
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.
distance two use
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.
reading views years
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!
book writing mind
After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.