The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile.
Philip PullmanRead
She was riding a bear! And the Aurora was swaying above them in golden arcs and loops, and all around was the bitter Arctic cold and the immense silence of the North.
Interpretation
The quote evokes a surreal and magical image of adventure amidst the stark beauty of the Arctic landscape.
In this quote, Philip Pullman presents a vivid scene where a character rides a bear under the enchanting Aurora Borealis, contrasting the warmth of the magical experience with the cold, harsh reality of the Arctic. This juxtaposition highlights the wonder of nature and the thrill of exploration, suggesting that even in the most extreme environments, extraordinary experiences can occur.
In practice
During a motivational speech, to illustrate the beauty of embracing the unknown.
The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile.
Education and health were always matters of charity. You educated children and you helped the sick because they were good things to do, not because you were going to make money out of them. If you let the money-making principle, the profit-seeking motive, anywhere near education and health, things go bad.
To get the best out of life here ...Good grief. There's plenty of it about, so indulge. Give yourself some thing to remember. Fall in love. Fall out of love. Gamble. Get drunk. See how long you can stay awake. Go for long walks at night. Discover what you're afraid of doing, and then do it.
People should decide on the books' meanings for themselves. They'll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence.
I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.
Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isn’t enough. She has been lying all her life, telling stories to people, making up fantasies, and suddenly she comes to a point where that’s not enough. All she can do is tell the truth. She tells the truth about her childhood, about the experiences she had in Oxford, and that is what saves her. True experience, not fantasy - reality, not lies - is what saves us in the end.
People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can't sustain them.
No prosaic description can portray the grandeur of 40 miles of rugged mountains rising beyond a placid lake in which each shadowy precipice and each purple gorge is reflected with a vividness that rivals the original.
I thought as I rode in the cold pleasant light of Sunday morning how silent & passive nature offers, every morn, her wealth to man; she is immensely rich, he is welcome to her entire goods, which he speaks no word, only leaves over doors ajar, hall, store room, & cellar. He may do as he will: if he takes her hint & uses her goods, she speaks no word; if he blunders & starves, she says nothing.
Morning drew on apace. The air became more sharp and piercing, as its first dull hue: the death of night, rather than the birth of day: glimmered faintly in the sky. The objects which had looked dim and terrible in the darkness, grew more and more defined, and gradually resolved into their familiar shapes. The rain came down, thick and fast; and pattered, noisily, among the leafless bushes.
You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.
The public must learn how to cherish the nobler and rarer plants, and to plant the aloe, able to wait a hundred years for it's bloom, or it's garden will contain, presently, nothing but potatoes and pot-herbs.
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