The Golden Compass Lies and Deceit Quotes

"What is it?" she said.

"It's an alethiometer. It's one of only six that were ever made. Lyra, I urge to again: keep it private. It would be better if Mrs. Coulter didn't know about it. Your uncle --"

"But what does it do?"

"It tells you the truth. As for how to read it, you'll have to learn by yourself." (4.75-78)

"Yes, it might have been. Or else it might've been just in passing. Yes. I think that was it. This Scholar, I think he was from New Denmark, he was talking to the Chaplain about Dust and I was just passing and it sounded interesting so I couldn't help stopping to listen. That's what it was." (5.14)

"That's a Greek word. I reckon it's from aletheia, which means truth. It's a truth measure." (7.118)

"What you're most like is marsh fire, that's the place you have in the gyptian scheme; you got witch oil in your soul. Deceptive, that's what you are, child." (7.9)

"And then one evening the Turkish Ambassador was a guest at Jordan for dinner. And he was under orders from the Sultan hisself to kill my father, right, and he had a ring on his finger with a hollow stone full of poison. And when the wine come round he made as if to reach across my father's glass, and he sprinkled the poison in. It was done so quick that no one else saw him, but – " (8.3)

By the end of the fourth repetition of the story Lyra was perfectly convinced she did remember it, and even volunteered details of the color of Mr. Coulter's coat and the cloaks and furs hanging in the closet. Ma Costa laughed. (8.15)

"How do you do that?"

"By not being human," he said. "That's why you could never trick a bear. We see tricks and deceit as plain as arms and legs. We can see in a way humans have forgotten. But you know about this; you can understand the symbol reader." (13.116-117)

With every second that went past, with every sentence she spoke, she felt a little strength flowing back. And now that she was doing something difficult and familiar and never quite predictable, namely lying, she felt a sort of mastery again, the same sense of complexity and control that the alethiometer gave her. She had to be careful not to say anything obviously impossible; she had to be vague in some places and invent plausible details in others; she had to be an artist, in short. (17.16)

Oh, the wicked liar, oh, the shameless untruths she was telling! And even if Lyra hadn't known them to be lies (Tony Makarios; those caged daemons) she would have hated it with a furious passion. Her dear soul, the darling companion of her heart, to be cut away and reduced to a little trotting pet? (17.38)

The great bear was helpless. Lyra found her power over him almost intoxicating, and if Pantalaimon hadn't nipped her hand sharply to remind her of the danger they were all in, she might have lost all sense of proportion. (19.186)

"Belacqua? No. You are Lyra Silvertongue," he said. (20.25)