We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. <i>Thou shalt not</i> is soon forgotten, but <… - Philip Pullman

Thou Shalt Not is soon forgotten, but Once Upon a Time is forever.

Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten, but 'Once upon a time' lasts forever.

It lay heavily in her hands, the crystal face gleaming, the golden body exquisitely machined. It was very like a clock, or a compass, for there were hands pointing to places around the dial, but instead of the hours or the points of the compass there were several little pictures, each of them painted with extraordinary precision, as if on ivory with the finest and slenderest sable brush. She turned the dial around to look at them all. There was an anchor; an hourglass surmounted by a skull; a chameleon, a bull, a beehive... Thirty-six altogether, and she couldn't even guess what they meant.

This edge," said Giacomo Paradisi, touching the steel with the handle of a spoon, "will cut through any material in the world. Look." And he pressed the silver spoon against the blade. Will, holding the knife, felt only the slightest resistance as the tip of the spoon's handle fell to the table, cut clean off. "The other edge," the old man went on, "is more subtle still. With it you can cut an opening out of this world altogether. Try it now. Do as I say — you are the bearer. You have to know. No one can teach you but me, and I have not much time left. Stand up and listen.

...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 let him forget their defects.