His Dark Materials: The Complete Collection: now a major BBC TV series

She sipped her chocolatl, which was thin and weak; how like these tedious priests, she thought, to take their self-righteous abstinence out on their visitors too.

For the first time ever I felt I was doing something with all of my nature and not only a part of it.

Presently her half-vision began to show her the pale forms that Mary was seeing in her dreams, and she adjusted her mind to resonate with them, as if she were tuning a string.

His part was simply to listen. His eyes were locked on hers, and he was paying profound attention; there was no need to respond.

The only light came from the pale reflection in the snow-bank of the remains of the fire, and that in turn was reflected from her wet cheeks, and her tears found their own reflection in Will’s eyes, and so those photons wove the two together in a silent web.

and having a minute ago nearly gone mad with fear, she was now suffused with a deep slow ecstasy at being one with her body and the earth and everything that was matter.

She looked defiant as well as lost,

“You’ve only got to wish for it, and the thing is done.”

And this time, with a wrenching crack, the knife shattered and the blade fell in pieces to the ground, to glitter on the stones that were still wet with the rain of another universe.