Many reviews are useless because, while purporting to condemn the book, they only reveal the reviewer's dislike of the kind to which it belongs. Let bad tragedies be censured by those who love tragedy, and bad detective stories by those who love the detective story. Then we shall learn their real faults. Otherwise we shall find epics blamed for not being novels, farces for not being high comedies, novels by James for lacking the swift action of Smollett. Who wants to hear a particular claret abused by a fanatical teetotaller, or a particular woman by a confirmed misogynist?
C.S. Lewis
Related (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes... JEAN SASSON Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN We should not blame people by the mistakes of others. DANIEL MELGAçO Read what you like, not what you’re told to like. That way you’ll read for a lifetime. CAREW PAPRITZ This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people. JOHN WYCLIFFE I'm about to do something very clever and a tiny bit against the rules of the universe. It's importa... TOMMY DONBAVAND The people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people. DANIEL WEBSTER Only by doing good can one benefit. Those who detach themselves from 'bad' and yearn for 'good',dedi... RIG VEDA Beauty fades, but knowledge is eternal ANDREW FAIRCHILD Mysteries include so many things: the noir novel, espionage novel, private eye novels, thrillers, po... OTTO PENZLER Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad. It is... MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think on my next birthday, I'm going t... STEPHEN CHBOSKY We Are All Infinite STEPHEN CHBOSKY You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I saw other people there. Old men sitting alone. Young girls with blue eye shadow and awkward jaws. ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY That one moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are ALIVE. STEPHAN CHBOSKY Somos quienes somos por un montón de razones.Quizás nunca conozcamos la mayoría de ellas.Pero aun... STEPHEN CHBOSKY Ambos dijeron que tomara asiento y parecían hablar en serio, así que me senté. STEPHEN CHBOSKY I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all beco... STEPHEN CHBOSKY So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybewe'll never know most of them. STEPHEN CHBOSKY So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. STEPHEN CHBOSKY There's nothing like the deep breathes after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore st... STHEPHEN CHBOSKY no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks, when the teacher rings the bell, drop... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I don't know the significance of this, but I find it very interesting. STEPHEN CHBOSKY Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad. STEPHEN CHBOSKY Don't settle for a normal life. Not when you can enjoy the wonderful weirdness of being who God crea... CRAIG GROESCHEL We are hell different but vanity keeps us stuck. PARUL WADHWA The "norm" for humanity is love. Brutality is an aberration. We are not sinners by nature.... JACK D. FORBES Let those only return to their homes who are called by the imperative duties which they owe to their... GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about t... GEORGE ORWELL We are ever brutal to those who love and serve us in silence, but the time may come when, for our cr... KAKUZō OKAKURA In attempting to reach the genuine psychological reason for the popularity of detective stories, it ... G.K. CHESTERTON The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving that physical coercion is not adapted to mo... LEO TOLSTOY You love another person not because of his virtues- that is infatuation- but in spite of his faults,... SUDHIR KAKAR And even if you do wear a maid outfit, it doesn't change the fact that you're strong or that you're ... HIRO FUJIWARA I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight t... CYRIL CONNOLLY Words will always be the words, the world will change. MAYANK KUMAR LOUTERIYA What will make you a star is in you SOTONYE ANGA There are those who will resent you for not being confined by their limitations. WAYNE GERARD TROTMAN We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure ... MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE I love the idea of a movie hero in a thriller who is able to get ahead by just his brilliance, and n... DANNY STRONG Her joke of a name aside, her general unprettiness aside, she was, in terms of permanently memorable... J.D. SALINGER The story of Pinocchio and the Talking Cricket, in which one sees that bad children do not like to b... CARLO COLLODI Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not ... URSULA K. LE GUIN I was very grateful to have heard it again. Because I guess we all forget sometimes. And I think eve... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if... STEPHEN CHBOSKY With intimacy comes the possibility of “engulfment” or being taken hostage by the demands of oth... MARY CROCKER COOK Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles: they are by some... E.E. CUMMINGS With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, ... FANNIE LOU HAMER You deserve to be with somebody, who knows you're the one, from that very first moment he lays eyes ... C. JOYBELL C. See the world as it is, not as you wish it would be E. LOCKHART Who does not desire such a victory by which we shall join places in our Kingdom, so far divided by n... ALEXANDER THE GREAT They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. EDGAR ALLAN POE Our lives are shaped by those who love us and by those who refuse to love us JOHN POWELL Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through yo... GERMANY KENT HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and t... ALICE WALKER Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. EDGAR ALLAN POE The truth is that we isolate a particular kind of love and appropriate it for the name of love, whic... PLATO We are the books we read and the things we love. CATH CROWLEY You should give up sarcasm. People could get the wrong idea about you. MICHAEL PRYOR I know exactly who I am, what I'm about and who I will become. EMMA PAUL It is better to grope in the dark and wade through a million errors to reach the Truth than to entru... SUDHIR KAKAR If you argue with a fool, you become a fool. L.A. HILDEN Everyday is another chance to do something great. EMMA PAUL You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm! COLETTE there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely ... OSCAR WILDE I think you can tell when you meet someone whether they read novels. There's some hollowness if they... PHILIP HENSHER Always be true to your friends, just as you are to yourself. MEG CABOT I have this feeling, like I'm waiting for something. But I have no idea what. JENNIFER NIVEN 2.5.03.02.005: Generally speaking, if you fiddle with something, it will break. Don't. JASPER FFORDE We are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinter... C.S. LEWIS How do you know about the world is real?... How?... How you don't think that you are locke... DEYTH BANGER Blessed are those who eat greens, for they shall keep their teeth. Blessed are those who wash their ... DIANA GABALDON Who am I?" she snaps. "I am America, Israel, England! What am I doing?" She waits another long momen... DIANA ABU-JABER It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of... NEIL GAIMAN You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. HENRY JAMES Most of us think we're too busy or too important to rest for a day. CRAIG GROESCHEL As for evildoers, for them awaits a painful chastisement; but for those who believe, and do deeds of... QUR'AN The clerisy are those who read for pleasure, but not for idleness; who read for pastime but not to k... ROBERTSON DAVIES If a person is consistently true to his words, then it will not be heard by the most people but by a... ANUJ SOMANY Love matches are made by people who are content, for a month of honey, to condemn themselves to a li... MARGUERITE BLESSINGTON Love-matches are made by people who are content, for a month of honey, to condemn themselves to a li... COUNTESS OF (MARGUERITE GARDINER) BLESSINGTON I was one of those kids who was always seeking the truth, and I first looked for truth by reading no... CYNTHIA KENYON Surely Allah is not ashamed to set forth any parable-- (that of) a gnat or any thing above that; the... QURAN They return, but not to the most High: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by th... BIBLE The real lover of cats is one who demands a clearer adjustment to the universe than ordinary househo... H. P. LOVECRAFT And I shall set this last truth down. We are who we are because of those we choose to love and becau... KATE MOSSE I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight t... CYRIL CONNOLLY We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure ... MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In t... EDGAR ALLAN POE I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib... C. JOYBELL C. I love the Swedish people for their detective novels, their archipelago, their sense of humor, their... MICHAEL LEVITT In a world of words, anything is possible... LAURA WRIGHT LAROCHE I live my life progressing for nothing else but the best. JONATHAN ANTHONY BURKETT Love stories are only fit for the solace of people in the insanity of puberty. No healthy adult huma... ALEISTER CROWLEY The meaning and worth of love, as a feeling, is that it really forces us, with all our being, to ack... VLADIMIR SERGEYEVICH SOLOVYOV Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional -- to transform sensatio... KATE SUMMERSCALE I was suddenly very aware of the fact it was me standing up in that tunnel with the wind over my fac... STEPHEN CHBOSKY
More C.S. Lewis
Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, ... C.S. LEWIS Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't mer... C.S. LEWIS There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. C.S. LEWIS The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, ... C.S. LEWIS The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are C.S. LEWIS The fundamental laws are in the long run merely statements that every event is itself and not some d... C.S. LEWIS I have said that she had no face; but that meant she had a thousand faces C.S. LEWIS Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of ... C.S. LEWIS My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this ide... C.S. LEWIS When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest bette... C.S. LEWIS Heaven offers nothing that the mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that ... C.S. LEWIS We turn first ter the bleedin' parallel quotations from Massinger and Shakespeare collocated by Guvn... C.S. LEWIS ... the very last thing I want to do is to unsettle in the mind of any Christian, whatever his denom... C.S. LEWIS If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a wandering to find home, why should... C.S. LEWIS It is hard to have patience with people who say There is no death or Death doesn't matter. There is ... C.S. LEWIS What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it. C.S. LEWIS The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to... C.S. LEWIS You can make anything by writing. C.S. LEWIS I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep sile... C.S. LEWIS It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have re... C.S. LEWIS Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found... C.S. LEWIS God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing. C.S. LEWIS Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you st... C.S. LEWIS Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as i... C.S. LEWIS There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. C.S. LEWIS No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – wo... C.S. LEWIS Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can u... C.S. LEWIS I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once. C.S. LEWIS Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably. C.S. LEWIS A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slight... C.S. LEWIS Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. C.S. LEWIS Nos acercaremos a Dios no con el intento de evitar los sufrimientos inherentes a todos los amores, s... C.S. LEWIS Hence as the poet says: People in love cannot be moved by kindness, And opposition makes them feel l... C.S. LEWIS Not that we must always partake of [God's feast] solemnly. "God who made good laughter" forbid. It i... C.S. LEWIS The truly wide taste in reading is that which enables a man to find something for his needs on the s... C.S. LEWIS Emerson has said, "When half-gods go, the gods arrive." That is a very doubtful maxim. Better say, "... C.S. LEWIS For most of us the true rivalry lies between the self and the human Other, not yet between the human... C.S. LEWIS But for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of Ceremonies has bee... C.S. LEWIS I once ventured to say to an old clergyman who was voicing this sort of patriotism, "But, sir, aren'... C.S. LEWIS Of all arguments against love, none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as "Careful! This might l... C.S. LEWIS The loves prove that they are unworthy to take the place of God by the fact that they cannot even re... C.S. LEWIS You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher, or the Christian by staring in his eyes as... C.S. LEWIS Just as there are none good but God, and nothing good but goodness, so there are no loves but love i... C.S. LEWIS What I have called Appreciative love is no basic element in Affection. It usually needs absence or b... C.S. LEWIS Every Christian would agree that a man’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for ... C.S. LEWIS Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude o... C.S. LEWIS Once you have realised that the Frenchmen like café complet just as we like bacon and eggs—why, g... C.S. LEWIS The truly wide taste in reading is that which enables a man to find something for his needs on the s... C.S. LEWIS La amistad nace en el momento en el que una persona le dice a la otra: ¿Qué? ¿Tú también ? Pens... C.S. LEWIS If ever the book which I am not going to write is written it must be the full confession by Christen... C.S. LEWIS A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experience of nature cannot val... C.S. LEWIS Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that... C.S. LEWIS Eros, honoured without reservation and obeyed unconditionally, becomes a demon. C.S. LEWIS The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It w... C.S. LEWIS Affection and Eros were too obviously connected with our nerves, too obviously shared with the brute... C.S. LEWIS Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that... C.S. LEWIS If Affection is made the absolute sovereign of a human life the seeds will germinate. Love, having b... C.S. LEWIS He has impressed upon our natures or states—must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is th... C.S. LEWIS If you take nature as a teacher she will teach you exactly the lessons you had already decided to le... C.S. LEWIS And as all Christians know there is another way of giving to God; every stranger whom we feed or clo... C.S. LEWIS Medicine labours to restore 'natural' structure or 'normal' function. But greed, egoism, self-decept... C.S. LEWIS Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a miser... C.S. LEWIS Every human love, at its height, has a tendency to claim for itself a divine authority. Its voice te... C.S. LEWIS Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appre... C.S. LEWIS To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life... C.S. LEWIS In my experience it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endur... C.S. LEWIS Sexual desire, without Eros, wants it, the thing in itself; Eros wants the Beloved. C.S. LEWIS Friendship (as the ancients saw) can be a school of virtue; but also (as they did not see) a school ... C.S. LEWIS Liking and Loves for the Sub-Human “Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love ... C.S. LEWIS There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will ... C.S. LEWIS We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physi... C.S. LEWIS El amor empieza a ser un demonio desde el momento en que comienza a ser un dios. C.S. LEWIS Mathematics effectively began when a few Greek friends got together to talk about numbers and lines ... C.S. LEWIS We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His b... C.S. LEWIS Nature does not teach. A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experien... C.S. LEWIS A tyrannous and gluttonous demand for affection can be a horrible thing. But in ordinary life no one... C.S. LEWIS What does seem to me poisonous, what breeds a type of patriotism that is pernicious if it lasts but ... C.S. LEWIS Amar é, sempre, ser vulnerável. Para que nunca se sofra com isso, aconselha-se não se amar algo, ... C.S. LEWIS Nothing in Man is either worse or better for being shared with the beasts. C.S. LEWIS Even if the two lovers are mature and experienced people who know that broken hearts heal in the end... C.S. LEWIS Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need... C.S. LEWIS Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping ... C.S. LEWIS When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has ... C.S. LEWIS It is no disparagement to the garden to say it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fru... C.S. LEWIS Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. C.S. LEWIS While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwh... C.S. LEWIS Very few modern people think Friendship a love of comparable value or even a love at all. C.S. LEWIS It has actually become very necessary in our time to rebut the theory that every firm and serious fr... C.S. LEWIS We are all receiving Charity. There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. C.S. LEWIS The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It w... C.S. LEWIS We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he "wants a... C.S. LEWIS Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude o... C.S. LEWIS Affection would not be affection if it was loudly and frequently expressed; to produce it in public ... C.S. LEWIS But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies ha... C.S. LEWIS In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself ... C.S. LEWIS Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for Go... C.S. LEWIS All that is not eternal is eternally out of date. C.S. LEWIS For us of course the shared activity and therefore the companionship on which Friendship supervenes ... C.S. LEWIS Those who cannot conceive of Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration ... C.S. LEWIS In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation into which ... C.S. LEWIS The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. IT ... C.S. LEWIS We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. They they become ... C.S. LEWIS Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appre... C.S. LEWIS We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for m... C.S. LEWIS A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. ... C.S. LEWIS [To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense i... C.S. LEWIS It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted crea... C.S. LEWIS I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you wan... C.S. LEWIS I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but becaus... C.S. LEWIS God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love ... C.S. LEWIS We were talking of DRAGONS, Tolkien and I In a Berkshire bar. The big workman Who had sa... C.S. LEWIS Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be ... C.S. LEWIS Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll h... C.S. LEWIS If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as... C.S. LEWIS Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make ev... C.S. LEWIS The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where th... C.S. LEWIS There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will ... C.S. LEWIS Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden ... C.S. LEWIS There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those t... C.S. LEWIS I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as... C.S. LEWIS You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know ... C.S. LEWIS I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looki... C.S. LEWIS Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither. C.S. LEWIS There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civil... C.S. LEWIS The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea... C.S. LEWIS At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or ... C.S. LEWIS As Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may thin... C.S. LEWIS Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our nat... C.S. LEWIS Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities. C.S. LEWIS In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give. C.S. LEWIS Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth?-Or at least, "Do you care about the s... C.S. LEWIS Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist... C.S. LEWIS People who bore one another should meet seldom; people who interest one another, often. C.S. LEWIS Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of ... C.S. LEWIS The mark of Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but t... C.S. LEWIS I have no duty to be anyone's Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no sh... C.S. LEWIS He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no... C.S. LEWIS I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ... C.S. LEWIS A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun... C.S. LEWIS We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the b... C.S. LEWIS To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. C.S. LEWIS The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good be... C.S. LEWIS If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explana... C.S. LEWIS Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if y... C.S. LEWIS You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another. C.S. LEWIS When the two people who thus discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, ... C.S. LEWIS In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates o... C.S. LEWIS Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one ... C.S. LEWIS Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no ... C.S. LEWIS Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. C.S. LEWIS The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts. C.S. LEWIS I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up o... C.S. LEWIS There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he... C.S. LEWIS A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking d... C.S. LEWIS They tell me, Lord, that when I seem To be in speech with you. Since but one voice is heard, i... C.S. LEWIS Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences,... C.S. LEWIS Friendship, then, like the other natural loves, is unable to save itself. In reality, because it is ... C.S. LEWIS The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I wa... C.S. LEWIS Once when I had remarked on the affection quite often found between cat and dog, my friend replied, ... C.S. LEWIS Alone among unsympathetic companions, I hold certain views and standards timidly, half ashamed to av... C.S. LEWIS We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris- ing generation. I am an oldster myself and... C.S. LEWIS Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike t... C.S. LEWIS No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. C.S. LEWIS And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, am... C.S. LEWIS You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. C.S. LEWIS Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon hi... C.S. LEWIS I desired dragons with a profound desire. C.S. LEWIS What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on wh... C.S. LEWIS Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole w... C.S. LEWIS You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of... C.S. LEWIS But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do ... C.S. LEWIS You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect th... C.S. LEWIS Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Ind... C.S. LEWIS People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot ... C.S. LEWIS The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not. C.S. LEWIS We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities, and anyone who has watched gluttons shov... C.S. LEWIS I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but becaus... C.S. LEWIS In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A y... C.S. LEWIS Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies t... C.S. LEWIS Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. C.S. LEWIS I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give... C.S. LEWIS Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he... C.S. LEWIS You are told to love your neighbour as yourself. How do you love yourself? When I look into my own m... C.S. LEWIS We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, Blessed are they that... C.S. LEWIS If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explan... C.S. LEWIS All joy emphasises our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are... C.S. LEWIS A faith in culture is as bad as a faith in religion; both expressions imply a turning away from thos... C.S. LEWIS Faith... is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted, despite your changing moods. C.S. LEWIS What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong tu... C.S. LEWIS If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precis... C.S. LEWIS Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead ... C.S. LEWIS Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth, and you will get neither. C.S. LEWIS “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we ... C.S. LEWIS To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possib... C.S. LEWIS If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of t... C.S. LEWIS Humans are amphibians -- half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, b... C.S. LEWIS I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of Admin. The gre... C.S. LEWIS The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epic... C.S. LEWIS Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense ... C.S. LEWIS The thing is to rely on God. The time will come when you will regard all this misery as a small pric... C.S. LEWIS