We Have To Learn Everything We Do.

If There Is A War To Be Fought, We Don’t Consider Cost One Of The Factors In Deciding Whether Or Not To Fight.

I Wanted To Avoid What Some Modern Tellers Have Done, Quite Legitimately, To Make Fairy Tales More Like Novels And Short Stories, To Characterize The Heroes And The Heroines Much More Than They Are Characterized In Grimm. I Like The Psychological Flatness Of Them, The Fact That They're More Like Masks Than Individuals.

Tolkien Seems To Me Reactionary, Conservative, Fearful Of A Modern World. Fearful Of Anything That Isn't Sanctioned By The Passage Of Long Eons Of Time. I Think What I'm Doing In His Dark Materials Is Politically The Reverse Of That.

When It Comes To Telling Children Stories, They Don’t Need Simple Language. They Need Beautiful Language.

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