She turned away. Behind them lay pain and death and fear; ahead of them lay doubt, and danger, and fathomless mysteries. But they weren’t alone. So … - Philip Pullman

So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky.

So Lyra and her dæmon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked towards the sun, and walked into the sky.

Behind them lay pain and death and fear; ahead of them lay doubt, and danger, and fathomless mysteries.

Tirelessly they flew on and on, and tirelessly she kept pace. She felt a fierce joy possessing her, that she could command these immortal presences. And she rejoiced in her blood and flesh, in the rough pine bark she felt next to her skin, in the beat of her heart and the life of all her senses, and in the hunger she was feeling now, and in the presence of her sweet-voiced bluethroat dæmon, and in the earth below her and the lives of every creature, plant and animal both; and she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.

He was liked when noticed, but not noticed much, and that did him no harm either.

This is a deep and uncomfortable paradox, which will not have escaped you; we can only defend democracy by being undemocratic. Every secret service knows this paradox.