The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile.
Philip PullmanRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Stories and their interpretations are dynamic and should evolve over time rather than be confined to a single version.
In this quote by Philip Pullman, he emphasizes the importance of viewing fairy tales as living narratives that change and grow with each retelling and interpretation. To adhere strictly to one version is akin to restricting the natural flow and creativity of storytelling, much like caging a bird that is meant to fly free. This perspective invites appreciation for the diversity of experiences and meanings that can emerge from cultural myths and tales.
Themes
Fairy TaleInterpretationStorytellingCreativityChange
In practice
Example use cases
During a literary discussion, one might quote Pullman to argue for the importance of multiple interpretations of classic tales.
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
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.
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
Similar quotes
Conceptual art became the liberating idea that gave the art of the next 40 years its real impetus.
Sol LewittRead
Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Tom StoppardRead
It's a very nice kind of quasi-fame being a writer, because you remain largely anonymous and you can have a private life, which I really cherish. I don't like to be in the public light all that much. I don't crave the whole fame thing at all.
Khaled HosseiniRead
It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.
Stephen KingRead
Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that's wrong. They know less, that's why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted.
Margaret AtwoodRead
There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things.
Gustave FlaubertRead