# Quote — Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife: His Dark Materials 2

> “Sisters,” she began, “let me tell you what is happening, and who it is that we must fight. It is the Magisterium, the Church. For all its history—and that’s not long by our lives, but it’s many, many of theirs—it’s tried to suppress and control every natural impulse. And when it can’t control them, it cuts them out. Some of you have seen what they did at Bolvangar. And that was horrible, but it is not the only such place, not the only such practice. Sisters, you know only the north; I have traveled in the south lands. There are churches there, believe me, that cut their children too, as the people of Bolvangar did—not in the same way, but just as horribly. They cut their sexual organs, yes, both boys and girls; they cut them with knives so that they shan’t feel. That is what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, obliterate, destroy every good feeling. So if a war comes, and the Church is on one side of it, we must be on the other, no matter what strange allies we find ourselves bound to.

- Author: [Philip Pullman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-pullman.md)
- Book: [The Subtle Knife: His Dark Materials 2](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-pullman/the-subtle-knife-his-dark-materials-2.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_Pullman#The_Subtle_Knife_(1997)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-pullman/the-subtle-knife-his-dark-materials-2/sisters-she-began

## More from this book

> I hold the subtle knife on behalf of the Guild.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-pullman/the-subtle-knife-his-dark-materials-2/i-hold-the.md)

> Who is this man who's got the knife?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-pullman/the-subtle-knife-his-dark-materials-2/who-is-this.md)

> Both the Oblation Board and the Specters of Indifference are bewitched by this truth about human beings: that innocence is different from experience. The Oblation Board fears and hates Dust, and the Specters feast on it, but it's Dust both of them are obsessed by.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-pullman/the-subtle-knife-his-dark-materials-2/both-the-oblation.md)