C. S. Lewis Way Quotations

Things never happen the same way twice.

Like a good chess player, Satan is always trying to maneuver you into a position where you can save your castle only by losing your bishop.

Odd, the way the less the Bible is read the more it is translated

Spying on people by magic is the same as spying on them in any other way.

The more we get what we now call 'ourselves' out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.

Look for the valleys, the green places, and fly through them. There will always be a way through.

Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.

After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us toward is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven.

A promise must be about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling a certain way.

When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive.

Isn't it funny the way some combinations of words can give you--almost apart from their meaning--a thrill like music?

The longest way round is the shortest way home

If you haven't met Satan recently, you are probably going his way!

The difference [God's] timelessness makes is that this now (which slips away from you even as you say the word now) is for Him infinite.

Every poem can be considered in two ways--as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes.

The only way to drive out bad culture is to create good culture. We need to recognize that artistic talent is a gift from the Lord - and that developing those talents is the only way to create good culture.

Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.

The claim to equality, outside of the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior.

But what would have been the good?" Aslan said nothing. "You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right – somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?" "To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that." "Oh dear," said Lucy. "But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan. "If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me – what will happen? There is only one way of finding out.

The longest way round is the shortest way home. (Quoting Alexander MacLaren, The Wearied Christ and Other Sermons)

The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that.

All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only beloved who will never pass away.

until the theologians and the ordained clergy begin to communicate with ordinary people in the vernacular, in a way that they can understand, I’m going to have to do this sort of thing.

Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.

Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.

The surest way of spoiling a pleasure [is] to start examining your satisfaction.

You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.

If you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way.

Child, that is why all the rest are now a horror to her. That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. Oh, the fruit is good, but they loath it ever after.

Badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. Evil is a parasite, not an original thing.

Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one.