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

He’d said once to Serafina Pekkala that he didn’t care for flying, that it was only a job, but he hadn’t meant it. Soaring upwards, with a fair wind behind and a new world in front: what could be better in this life?

It’s not only the knife that has to cut, it’s your own mind. You have to think it. So do this: put your mind out at the very tip of the knife. Concentrate, boy. Focus your mind. Don’t think about your wound. It will heal. Think about the knife tip. That is where you are. Now feel with it, very gently.

Lyra could see why Farder Coram loved her, and why it was breaking his heart, though she had known neither of those things a moment before. He was growing old; he was an old broken man; and she would be young for generations.

And if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn’t feel other things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the Aurora, or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin.

were filled with anxiety and with sweetness in equal measure, so that he struggled to wake up and yet longed for sleep again.

The Oblation Board and the Spectres of Indifference are both bewitched by this truth about human beings: that innocence is different from experience. The Oblation Board fears and hates Dust, and the Spectres feast on it, but it’s Dust they’re both obsessed by.”

smiling happily, because Yambe-Akka was merry and light-hearted and her visits were gifts of joy.

She looked defiant as well as lost,

Someone will appear to guide you: the night is full of angels.