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"When you look at what C.S. Lewis is saying, his message is so anti-life, so cruel, so unjust. The view that the Narnia books have for the material world is one of almost undisguised contempt. At one point, the old professor says, 'It's all in Plato' - meaning that the physical world we see around us is the crude, shabby, imperfect, second-rate copy of something much better. I want to emphasize the simple physical truth of things, the absolute primacy of the material life, rather than the spiritual or the afterlife."
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"What keeps the so-called consumer society going is the fact that trying to find yourself through things doesn't work. The ego satisfaction is short-lived and so you keep looking for more and keep buying and consuming."
"He had allowed the advertisers to multiply his wants; he had learned to equate happiness with possessions, and prosperity with money to spend in a shop."
"Isn't materialism the cause of much that is evil in the land of mortal souls?"
"I really think that American gentlemen are the best after all, because kissing your hand may make you feel very good but a diamond and a sapphire bracelet lasts forever."
"Man with his new powers became rich like Midas but all that he touched had gone dead and cold."
"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."
"It is good to have wealth. It is great to leave in comfort. It is awesome to obtain possessions but, don't be too eager for material possessions for the same material possessions that bring joy are the same possessions that bring sorrow and pain and also leave a big had I know on our minds."
"The folly of endless consumerism sends us on a wild goose-chase for happiness through materialism."
"People are preoccupied only with money. They are looking to see where they can get it from. Hey, why are you looking for it in a 'cemetery'? This worldly life has become like a cemetery. There is no love to be seen in it. The way in which money comes to one is a natural thing. It is (by way of) scientific circumstantial evidences. Why do we have to run after it? If it were to free (liberate) us itself, then it would be very good, right?"
"For our radically misnamed "materialistic civilization must above all cultivate the love of material, of earth, air, and water, of mountains and forests, of excellent food and imaginative housing and clothing, and of cherishing our artfully erotic contacts between human bodies. Certainly, all these so"called "things are as impermanent as ripples in water, but what life, what love, what energy is there in a perfectly pure abstraction or a totally solid and eternally indestructible rock?"
Explore more quotes by Philip Pullman
"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, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day."
"One moment several things are possible, the next moment only one happens, and the rest don't exist. Except that other worlds have sprung into being, on which the did happen."
"When you stopped believing in God,' he went on, 'did you stop believing in good and evil?''No. But I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that's an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels."
"Seems to me-' Lee said, feeling for the words, 'seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed...."
"When you live for many hundreds of years, you know that every opportunity will come again."
"We measure the value of a civilized society by the number of Libraries it opens, not the number it closes down."
"You going to be a scientist when you grow up? That sort of question deserved a blank stare, which it got."
"Who are you?' the woman said at last.'Lyra Silver-''No, where d'you come from? What are you? How do you know things like this?' Wearily Lyra sighed; she had forgotten how roundabout Scholars could be. It was difficult to tell them the truth when a lie would have been so much easier for them to understand."
"I can't bear the thought of oblivion, Asriel, she continued. 'Sooner anything than that. I used to think pain would be worse-to be tortured forever-I thought that must be worse . . . But as long as you were conscious, it would be better, wouldn't it? Better than feeling nothing, just going into the dark, everything going out forever and ever?"
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