Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, and clever. - Philip Pullman

"...Will, I used to come here in my Oxford and sit on this exact same bench whenever I wanted to be alone, just me and Pan. What I thought was that if you - maybe just once a year - if we could come here at the same time, just for an hour or something, then we could pretend we were close again-because we would be close, if you sat here and I sat just here in my world -"
"Yes," he said, "as long as I live, I'll come back. Whenever I am in the world, I'll come back here -"

"Who are you?" the woman said at last.

"Lyra Silver — "

"No, where d'you come from? What are you? How do you know things like this?" Wearily Lyra sighed; she had forgotten how roundabout Scholars could be. It was difficult to tell them the truth when a lie would have been so much easier for them to understand.

many good liars have no imagination at all its which gives their lies such wide-eyed conviction