Words of Wisdom
Everyone has favorite lines from the books, wheter funny or wise or both. Here are some favorite quotations from the Chronicles, and from some of C.S. Lewis's other books as well. Now you can also read and submit quotations from books by other authers by going to the In Others' Words page. See what other people who love the Chronicles like to read.
Got a favorite that I haven't included? Send it to me! But please check for spelling errors and remember to include the name of the book from which the quotation comes.
The Chronicles of Narnia
"There are only three possiblities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume she is telling the truth."
--Professor Kirke, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
"To know what would have happened child? No. Nobody is ever told that."
--Aslan, Prince Caspian
"I stand by Aslan. Have patience, like us beasts. The help will come. It may be even now at the door."
--Trufflehunter, Prince Caspian
"It's a rotton picture," said Eustace.
"You won't have to see it if you step outside," said Edmund.
--The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play world, which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Alslan's side, even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it."
--Puddleglum, The Silver Chair
"Please," she said, "you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."
--Hwin, The Horse and His Boy
"...if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one."
--The Horse and His Boy
Till We Have Faces
"I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"
--Orual
The Space Trilogy -- Perelandra
"Indeed no imagined horror could have surpassed the sense which grew within him as the slow hours passed, that this creature was, by all human standards, inside out-- its heart on the surface and its shallowness at the heart. On the surface, great desighns and an antagonism to Heaven which involved the fate of worlds: but deep within, when every veil had been pierced, was there, after all, nothing but a black puerility, an aimless empty spitefulness content to sate eitself with the tiniest cruelties, as love does not disdain the smallest kindness?"
"The fate of a world really depended on how they behaved in the next few hours."
"And he bowed his and groaned and repined against his fate-- to be still a man and yet to be forced up into the metaphysical world, to enact what philosphy only thinks."
" 'My name is also Ransom,' said the Voice."
"He asked no longer 'Why me?' It might as well be he as another. It might as well be any other choice as this. The fierce light which he had seen resting on this moment of decision rested in reality on all."
" 'All said and done,' he thought, 'it's been worth it. I have had a time. I have lived in Paradise.' "
--Dr. Elwin Ransom
"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, here goes-- I mean Amen."
--Dr. Elwin Ransom
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