I Don't Profess Any Religion;

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.

I Practiced On The Greatest Model Of Storytelling We've Got, Which Is "the Iliad" And "the Odyssey." I Told Those Stories Many, Many Times.

Religion Grants Its Adherents Malign, Intoxicating And Morally Corrosive Sensations. Destroying Intellectual Freedom Is Always Evil, But Only Religion Makes Doing Evil Feel Quite So Good.

The Idea Hovered And Shimmered Delicately, Like A Soap Bubble, And She Dared Not Even Look At It Directly In Case It Burst. But She Was Familiar With The Way Of Ideas, And She Let It Shimmer, Looking Away, Thinking About Something Else.

Marisa! Marisa!” The Cry Was Torn From Lord Asriel, And With The Snow Leopard Beside Her, With A Roaring In Her Ears, Lyra’s Mother Stood And Found Her Footing And Leapt With All Her Heart, To Hurl Herself Against The Angel And Her Daemon And Her Dying Lover, And Seize Those Beating Wings, And Bear Them All Down Together Into The Abyss.