The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile.
Philip PullmanRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Embrace life's experiences and take risks to create lasting memories.
In this quote, Philip Pullman encourages us to fully engage in life by seeking out varied experiences, both joyful and challenging. He emphasizes the idea that one's life is enriched by love, adventure, and confronting fears, suggesting that these moments contribute to a fulfilling existence and should be savored and remembered.
Themes
LifeExperiencesRiskLoveMemory
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about living fully, you could use this quote to inspire others to take risks.
More from Philip Pullman
All quotes βEducation and health were always matters of charity. You educated children and you helped the sick because they were good things to do, not because you were going to make money out of them. If you let the money-making principle, the profit-seeking motive, anywhere near education and health, things go bad.
Philip PullmanRead
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.
Philip PullmanRead
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.
Philip PullmanRead
Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isnβt enough. She has been lying all her life, telling stories to people, making up fantasies, and suddenly she comes to a point where thatβs 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.
Philip PullmanRead
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.
Philip PullmanRead
Similar quotes
And here am I, budding among the ruins with only sorrow to bite on, as if weeping were a seed and I the earth's only furrow.
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Life is what happens to you while you're planning on doing something else.
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Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.
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I'm bred for farm work, and for such folk, the only A's you get come from effort. Strife and strain are all the world can offer, and they temper you into something unbreakable because Lord knows they'll try -- without let up -- to break you.
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The pain was quite extraordinary. And yet also weirdly welcome and restorative, bringing him news of his aliveness and his caughtness in a story larger than himself.
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