The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials #3)

by Philip Pullman

If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I’ll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I’ll be resentful because it’ll feel as if I didn’t have a choice, and if I don’t do it, I’ll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else.” “Then you have already taken the first steps toward wisdom,” said Xaphania.

“I will love you forever, whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again…” “I’ll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight…”

To go into the dark of death is a thing we all fear; say what we like, we fear it. But if there’s a way out for that part of us that has to go down there, then it makes my heart lighter.”

“Now, Lyra, we’ve hardly heard from you. But I know you’ve seen many things. Are you able to tell us something of what you’ve experienced?” “Yes,” she said. “But not all at once. I don’t understand some of it, and some makes me shudder and cry still; but I will tell you, I promise, as much as I can. Only you have to promise something, too.” The Master looked at the gray-haired lady with the marmoset dæmon in her lap, and a flicker of amusement passed between them. “What’s that?” said Dame Hannah. “You have to promise to believe me,” Lyra said seriously. “I know I haven’t always told the truth, and I could only survive in some places by telling lies and making up stories. So I know that’s what I’ve been like, and I know you know it, but my true story’s too important for me to tell if you’re only going to believe half of it. So I promise to tell the truth, if you promise to believe it.”

You see, one thing you’ll need soon, Lyra, is the friendship of other girls of your age. There are things that we learn from one another when we’re young, and I don’t think that Jordan can provide quite all of them.

It was delightful to see him leaping through the branches so far from her, but they had to be careful not to do it when anyone was looking; their painfully acquired witch power of separating had to stay a secret. Once she would have reveled in showing it off to all her urchin friends, and making them goggle with fear, but Will had taught her the value of silence and discretion.

She had told Pantalaimon everything, but it was right that he should have some secrets from her, after the way she’d abandoned him. And it was comforting to think that she and Will had another thing in common. She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn’t think of him—didn’t speak to him in her head, didn’t relive every moment they’d been together, didn’t long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever.

We shouldn’t live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.” “He said we had to build something…” “That’s why we needed our full life, Pan. We would have gone with Will and Kirjava, wouldn’t we?” “Yes. Of course! And they would have come with us. But—” “But then we wouldn’t have been able to build it. No one could if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build…”