...his face bore an expression that mingled haughty disdain with a tender, ardent sympathy, as if he would love all things if only his nature could l… - Philip Pullman

All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.

She was riding a bear! And the Aurora was swaying above them in golden arcs and loops, and all around was the bitter Arctic cold and the immense silence of the North.

Lyra bent over the open vessel and found the concentrated fragrance of every rose that had ever bloomed: a sweetness and power so profound that it moved beyond sweetness altogether and out of the other side of its own complexity into a realm of clear and simple purity and beauty. It was the smell of sunlight itself.