lack of strength

Lyra Belacqua: If you value your lives, come no further.

Billy Costa: Why? We gobbled him fair and square.

Lyra Belacqua: This ain't no game, Billy Costa. Don't you know what this gate is?

Billy Costa: It's just the back door to your stupid college. So?

Lyra Belacqua: There's a curse on this gate. You gyptians ought to know that. Crossing this gate is worse than touching someone's demon with your bare hands.

Billy Costa: Why ain't nothing happen to you, then?

Lyra Belacqua: Because we live here. We got safe passage, see? And anyway, my mother's the one who put the curse on this gate in the first place.

Billy Costa: What mother? I heard you was an orphink and your uncle only left you here cause' nobody wanted you.

Lyra Belacqua: Come here and say that.

Lyra Belacqua: [as Mrs. Coulter tries to comfort her] No! Don't you touch!

Marisa Coulter: No one is going to hurt you. No one is ever, ever going to hurt you.

Lyra Belacqua: They did it to Billy and those other kids. They cut their demons away. Why? Why are they doing that?

Marisa Coulter: I know it's difficult to understand, but it's for their own good. It's just a little cut. Now, you listen. A long long time ago,some of our ancestors made a terrible mistake. They disobeyed the authority and that is what made dust came into the world. And ever since then, we've been sick with it. Been sick with dust. But there is a way out. You see, Dust doesn't settle on little children. It's later when your demon begins to settle. The Dust begins to swarm all around us,working its mixture and that is how children begin to have all sorts of nasty thoughts and unhappy feelings, but there is a way to stop it.

Lyra Belacqua: Well, if it's so good, then why didn't you do it yourself? Why didn't you let them do it to me?

Marisa Coulter: I'm going to tell you something. Something very important, something you don't know. Intercision isn't perfect yet, and you're not just anyone, Lyra. Your mother didn't die in an airship accident as you were told. She wasn't married to your father and even though and even though she loved you very much and she wanted to keep you. It wasn't allowed. So you were taken from her, and it wasn't until things changed... and she was free to do as she wanted... That she went to Jordan College and spoke to the Master.

Lyra Belacqua: No! You can't be!

[gets out of the bed and walks a few meters away from Mrs. Coulter]

Marisa Coulter: Yes, Lyra. You're mine. And you're safe with me. You'll always be safe with me.

Lyra Belacqua: Who's my father?

[She took a minute to figure out, then she finally guesses who her father is]

Lyra Belacqua: Lord Asriel? He's my father, isn't he?

Marisa Coulter: Yes. Yes.