The Amber Spyglass Quotes

“Una verdad referida con mala fe es peor que todas las mentiras. William Blake”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“Mientras volaba en silencio volvió la vista atrás, como si le persiguiera su miedo. Edmund Spenser”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“Noche que contemplas ceñuda este refulgente desierto, deja que salga tu luna mientras cierro los ojos. William Blake”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“A veces no hacemos lo debido porque lo indebido parece más peligroso, y no queremos demostrar que estamos asustados, de modo que hacemos algo que está mal simplemente porque es peligroso.”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“Del inclinado tejado colgaban mágicas hileras de lámparas que refulgían cual estrellas y brillantes faroles de aceite que proyectaban luz… John Milton”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“La serpiente era más sutil que cualquier animal del campo creado por Dios. Génesis”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“Si pensó por un momento que iba a dejar a mi hija al cuidado de un grupo de hombres obsesionados con la sexualidad, unos hombres con las uñas sucias, que apestan a sudor de varios meses, unos hombres cuya enfermiza imaginación reptaría sobre el cuerpo de mi hija como un enjambre de cucarachas… Si cree que estoy dispuesta a entregarles a mi hija, es usted más estúpido de lo que supone que soy yo.”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“Muchas veces me he enamorado de la placentera muerte… John Keats”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“Todo hombre está en poder de su espectro hasta que llega la hora en que su humanidad despierta… William Blake”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“La religión cristiana es un error muy poderoso y convincente, eso es todo.”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“No, pero dejé de creer que existían un poder benéfico y un poder malévolo que estaba fuera de nosotros. Y me convencí de que el bien y el mal solo designan las acciones de las personas, no lo que estas son. Solo podemos decir que esta es una buena acción porque beneficia a alguien, y que esa otra es una mala acción porque perjudica a alguien. Las personas son demasiado complejas para ponerles simples etiquetas.”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“Pero entonces no habríamos podido construir. Nadie es capaz de hacerlo si antepone sus deseos. En nuestros diversos mundos, todos tenemos que esforzarnos en conseguir esas cosas tan difíciles como ser alegres, bondadosos, curiosos, valientes y pacientes, y tenemos que estudiar, pensar y trabajar duro, y entonces lograremos construir…”
― Philip Pullman, El catalejo lacado

“Every atom of me, and every atom of you.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that’s an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“I want to live with you for ever. I want to kiss you and lie down with you and wake up with you every day of my life until I die, years and years and years away.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“Может быть, иногда мы не поступаем правильно, потому что неправильное кажется более опасным, а мы не хотим выглядеть трусами и поступаем неправильно только потому, что это опасно. Нам важнее не выглядеть трусами, чем правильно рассудить.”
― Philip Pullman, Amber Spyglass

“Когда они нагрузились, Уилл бросил в ящик большого соснового стола золотую монету.

– А что? – сказала Лира, увидев, как Тиалис поднял брови. – Если что-то берешь, надо платить.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“- Que voyez-vous ?
- La corruption, la jalousie et la soif de pouvoir. La cruauté et la froideur. Une curiosité perverse et inquisitrice. Une méchanceté pure, venimeuse e toxique. Jamais depuis votre plus jeune âge vous n'avez fait preuve d'une once de compassion, de sympathie ou de gentillesse sans calculer ce que cela pourrait vous rapporter en retour. Vous avez torturé sans remords ni hésitation ; vous avez trahi et intrigué, et vous avez tiré fierté de votre duplicité. Vous êtes un cloaque d'obscénité morale.
P. 925”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials 3

“Dust is beautiful...I never knew.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“The ghosts who had come with them were hurrying towards the town, so many that they looked like the grains of sand that trickle towards the hole of an hourglass”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“It was one of those moments when we suddenly recall a dream that we've unaccountably forgotten, and back in a flood comes all the emotion we felt in our sleep”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“Iorek Byrnison moved around to the upper side. It was a good shelter from an enemy below, but not good enough; for among the hail of bullets that had chipped fragments off the rock had been a few that had found their target, and that lay where they had come to rest, in the body of the man lying stiff in the shadow.

He was a body, still, and not a skeleton, because the witch had laid a spell to preserve him from corruption. Iorek could see the face of his old comrade drawn and tight with the pain of his wounds, and see the jagged holes in his garments where the bullets had entered. The witch's spell did not cover the blood that must have spilled, and insects and the sun and the wind had dispersed it completely. Lee Scoresby looked not asleep, nor at peace; he looked as if he had died in battle; but he looked as if he knew that his fight had been successful.

And because the Texan aeronaut was one of the very few humans Iorek had ever esteemed, he accepted the man's last gift to him. With deft movements of his claws, he ripped aside the dead man's clothes, opened the body with one slash, and began to feast on the flesh and blood of his old friend. It was his first meal for days, and he was hungry.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“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. Can you see the sharpest edge of that knife?”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“And there it was: like a sheet of glass hanging unsupported in the air, but glass with no attention-catching reflections in it: just a square patch of difference.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“and asked the I Ching: Should I be here doing this, or should I go on somewhere else and keep searching? The reply came: Keeping still, so that restlessness dissolves; then, beyond the tumult, one can perceive the great laws.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“and asked the I Ching: Should I be here doing this, or should I go on somewhere else and keep searching? The reply came: Keeping still, so that restlessness dissolves; then, beyond the tumult, one can perceive the great laws. It went on: As a mountain keeps still within itself, thus a wise man does not permit his will to stray beyond his situation.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“I don’t like that knife,” Iorek said. “I fear what it can do. I have never known anything so dangerous. The most deadly fighting machines are little toys compared to that knife; the harm it can do is unlimited. It would have been infinitely better if it had never been made.” “But with it—” began Will. Iorek didn’t let him finish, but went on, “With it you can do strange things. What you don’t know is what the knife does on its own. Your intentions may be good. The knife has intentions, too.” “How can that be?” said Will. “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. Can you see the sharpest edge of that knife?” “No,” said Will, for it was true: the edge diminished to a thinness so fine that the eye could not reach it. “Then how can you know everything it does?” “I can’t. But I must still use it, and do what I can to help good things come about. If I did nothing, I’d be worse than useless. I’d be guilty.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“He fled,” said the bear. “He wasn’t a warrior. He did as much as he could, and then he couldn’t do any more. He wasn’t the only one to be afraid; I’m afraid, too. So I have to think it through. 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.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

“You’re the first people we ever saw without a death,” said the man, whose name, they’d learned, was Peter. “Since we come here, that is. We’re like you, we come here before we was dead, by some chance or accident. We got to wait till our death tells us it’s time.” “Your death tells you?” said Lyra. “Yes. What we found out when we come here, oh, long ago for most of us, we found we all brought our deaths with us. This is where we found out. We had ’em all the time, and we never knew. See, everyone has a death. It goes everywhere with ’em, all their life long, right close by. Our deaths, they’re outside, taking the air; they’ll come in by and by. Granny’s death, he’s there with her, he’s close to her, very close.” “Doesn’t it scare you, having your death close by all the time?” said Lyra. “Why ever would it? If he’s there, you can keep an eye on him. I’d be a lot more nervous not knowing where he was.” “And everyone has their own death?” said Will, marveling. “Why, yes, the moment you’re born, your death comes into the world with you, and it’s your death that takes you out.” “Ah,” said Lyra, “that’s what we need to know, because we’re trying to find the land of the dead, and we don’t know how to get there. Where do we go then, when we die?” “Your death taps you on the shoulder, or takes your hand, and says, ‘Come along o’ me, it’s time.’ It might happen when you’re sick with a fever, or when you choke on a piece of dry bread, or when you fall off a high building; in the middle of your pain and travail, your death comes to you kindly and says, ‘Easy now, easy, child, you come along o’ me,’ and you go with them in a boat out across the lake into the mist. What happens there, no one knows. No one’s ever come back.” The woman told a child to call the deaths in, and he scampered to the door and spoke to them. Will and Lyra watched in wonder, and the Gallivespians drew closer together, as the deaths—one for each of the family—came in through the door: pale, unremarkable figures in shabby clothes, just drab and quiet and dull. “These are your deaths?” said Tialys. “Indeed, sir,” said Peter. “Do you know when they’ll tell you it’s time to go?” “No. But you know they’re close by, and that’s a comfort.”
― Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass