What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose.- Philip Pullman
What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism.
We do not need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and do nots: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.
True education flowers at the point when delight falls in love with responsibility.
That's the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.
One curious thing about growing up is that you do not only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.
My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing.
Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain.
If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, do not write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day.
I have maintained a passionate interest in education, which leads me occasionally to make foolish and ill-considered remarks alleging that not everything is well in our schools.
I had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction!
For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you are writing, and for that you need silence.
For a long time I thought I was a poet, but that is a high title to claim.
Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it.
Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit.
