Quote

We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties.

C. S. Lewis

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C. S. Lewis
Age: 64 †
Born: 1898
Born: January 1
Died: 1963
Died: January 1
Autobiographer
Broadcaster
Essayist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Literary Scholar
Medievalist
Novelist
Belfast
Ireland
Clive Hamilton
N. W. Clerk
CS Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis
C.S. Lewis
Given
Lust
Stories
Narrative
Savour
Firsts
Till
Rereading
First
Curiosity
Beauties
Real
Fully
Asleep
Reading
Sheer
Story
Leisure
Enjoy
Laid

More quotes by C. S. Lewis

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It is very true. But even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did.
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The central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start.
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If, as I can't help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.
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when pain is to be born, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.
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You never know what you can do until you try, and very few try unless they have to.
C. S. Lewis
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My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?
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Think of me as a fellow patient in the same hospital who, having been admitted a little earlier could give some advice.
C. S. Lewis
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They tell me, Lord, that when I seem To be in speech with you. Since but one voice is heard, it
C. S. Lewis
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It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.
C. S. Lewis
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Do not dare not to dare.
C. S. Lewis
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The road to the promised land runs past Sinai.
C. S. Lewis
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War creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice.
C. S. Lewis
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The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words 'true' or 'false'.
C. S. Lewis
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Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him.
C. S. Lewis
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First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood we write in order to understand.
C. S. Lewis
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You ask ‘for what’ God wants you. Isn’t the primary answer that He wants you. We’re not told that the lost sheep was sought out for anything except itself [Matthew 18:12-14 Luke 15:3-7]. Of course, He may have a special job for you: and the certain job is that of becoming more and more His.
C. S. Lewis
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Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it.
C. S. Lewis
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Those who would like the God of scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask.
C. S. Lewis
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The purpose of all opprobrious language is, not to describe, but to hurt - even when, like Hamlet, we make only the shadow-passes of a soliloquised combat. We call the enemy not what we think he is but what we think he would least like to be called.
C. S. Lewis
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It may well be that by trickery of priests men have sometimes taken a mortal's voice for a god's. But it will not work the other way. No one who hears a god's voice takes it for a man's.
C. S. Lewis