Philip Pullman likes to characterize his storytelling as something like what a crow does, stealing shiny things--only in his case, shiny bits of story.
Here are some of the places he likes to steal from--
John Milton, Paradise Lost
William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Heinrich von Kleist, "On the Marionette Theatre"
John Keats, 'negative capability,' from his letters
CS Lewis, in an adversarial way, hiding in the wardrobe
Behind all these, of course, there's the language of the King James Bible and his grandfather's Anglican Book of Common Prayer
Looking at this list, it's hard to say whether he's closer to Prometheus or the bird
