“Tolkien, who created this marvellous vehicle, doesn't go anywhere in it. He just sits where he is. What I mean by that is that he always seems to be looking backwards, to a greater and more golden past; and what's more he doesn't allow girls or women any important part in the story at all. Life is bigger and more interesting than The Lord of the Rings thinks it is.”

English writer, best known for His Dark Materials

Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman is an English writer, best known for the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials. He is a contemporary author whose work has reached a wide readership, with 119 quotes on this site. His Dark Materials began with Northern Lights in 1995, which won the Carnegie Medal and later the "Carnegie of Carnegies". The third volume, The Amber Spyglass, won the Whitbread Award. He later began the companion trilogy The Book of Dust in 2017, and its final novel, The Rose Field, was published in October 2025.