1) '''What is it?' she said.
Pantalaimon, a wildcat still, crouched on the table six inches away, his green eyes following it round and round inside the glass.
'If you was to crack it open,' said Farder Coram, 'you'd find no living thing in there. No animal nor insect, at any rate. I seen one of these things afore, and I never thought I'd see one again this far north. Afric things. There's a clockwork running in there, and pinned to the spring of it, there's a bad spirit with a spell through its heart.'''

2) ''The enormousness of the task silenced them. Lyra looked up at the blazing sky. She was aware of how small they were, she and her dæmon, in comparison with the majesty and vastness of the universe; and of how little they knew, in comparison with the profound mysteries above them.''