It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the righ… - Philip Pullman

Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read.

As for what it's against - the story is against those who pervert and misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book and a priesthood and an apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms.

Eventually, child, you will come to the land of the dead with no effort, no risk, a safe, calm journey, in the company of your own death, your special, devoted friend, who's been beside you every moment of your life, who knows you better than yourself.

On an unseasonably, uncomfortably, unnaturally warm day in mid-October I sit here trying not to think about global warming. But it's difficult. Is this fear going to pass away like the other fears I remember — nuclear war, overpopulation leading to mass starvation, the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain? Well, those problems haven't gone away exactly. The new one just seems bigger than all the rest.