The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials #3)

by Philip Pullman

When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don’t take are snuffed out like candles, as if they’d never existed. At the moment all Will’s choices existed at once. But to keep them all in existence meant doing nothing. He had to choose, after all.

So I am troubled, having to do un-bearlike deeds and speculate and doubt like a human. “And I shall tell you one thing. You know it already, but you don’t want to, which is why I tell you openly, so that you don’t mistake it. If you want to succeed in this task, you must no longer think about your mother. You must put her aside. If your mind is divided, the knife will break.

Because it brought us news of the world and the sun and the wind and the rain. Because it was true.”

we have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere.

“But your reading will be even better then, after a lifetime of thought and effort, because it will come from conscious understanding. Grace attained like that is deeper and fuller than grace that comes freely, and furthermore, once you’ve gained it, it will never leave you.”