For A Long Time I Thought I

Gradually, At Various Points In Our Childhoods, We Discover Different Forms Of Conviction. There's The Rock-hard Certainty Of Personal Experience ("i Put My Finger In The Fire And It Hurt,"), Which Is Probably The Earliest Kind We Learn. Then There's The Logically Convincing, Which We Probably Come To First Through Maths, In The Context Of Pythagoras's Theorem Or Something Similar, And Which, If We First Encounter It At Exactly The Right Moment, Bursts On Our Minds Like Sunrise With The Whole Universe Playing A Great Chord Of C Major.

If You Want Something You Can Have It, But Only If You Want Everything That Goes With It, Including All The Hard Work And The Despair, And Only If You're Willing To Risk Failure.

The First Ghost To Leave The World Of The Dead Was Roger. He Took A Step Forward, And Turned To Look Back At Lyra, And Laughed In Surprise As He Found Himself Turning Into The Night, The Starlight, The Air. . .and Then He Was Gone, Leaving Behind Such A Vivid Little Burst Of Happiness.

I'm For Open-mindedness And Tolerance. I'm Against Any Form Of Fanaticism, Fundamentalism Or Zealotry, And This Certainty Of 'we Have The Truth.' The Truth Is Far Too Large And Complex. Nobody Has The Truth.

The Intentions Of A Tool Are What It Does. A Hammer Intends To Strike, A Vise Intends To Hold Fast, A Lever Intends To Lift. They Are What It Is Made For. But Sometimes A Tool May Have Other Uses That You Don't Know. Sometimes In Doing What You Intend, You Also Do What The Knife Intends, Without Knowing.