Philip Pullman Quote

But what matters is not the similarities your imagination finds, but the similarities that are implicit in the image, and they are not necessarily the same. I have noticed that the more imaginative readers are often the less successful. Their minds leap to what they think is there rather than waiting with patience. And what matters most of all is where the chosen meaning comes in the hierarch of meaning, you see, and for that there is no alternative to the books. That is why the only alethiometers we know about are kept in or by great libraries.

Philip Pullman

But what matters is not the similarities your imagination finds, but the similarities that are implicit in the image, and they are not necessarily the same. I have noticed that the more imaginative readers are often the less successful. Their minds leap to what they think is there rather than waiting with patience. And what matters most of all is where the chosen meaning comes in the hierarch of meaning, you see, and for that there is no alternative to the books. That is why the only alethiometers we know about are kept in or by great libraries.

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About Philip Pullman

Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, The Times named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945". In a 2004 BBC poll, he was named the eleventh most influential person in British culture. He was knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to literature.
Northern Lights, the first volume in His Dark Materials, won the 1995 Carnegie Medal of the Library Association as the year's outstanding English-language children's book. For the Carnegie's 70th anniversary, it was named in the top ten by a panel tasked with compiling a shortlist for a public vote for an all-time favourite. It won that public vote and was named all-time "Carnegie of Carnegies" in June 2007. It was filmed under the book's US title, The Golden Compass. In 2003, His Dark Materials trilogy ranked third in the BBC's The Big Read, a poll of 200 top novels voted by the British public.