It is quite useless knocking at the door of heaven for earthly comfort. It's not the sort of comfort they supply there.

In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.

Edmund, who was becoming a nastier person every minute, thought that he had scored a great success, and went on at once to say, 'There she goes again. What's the matter with her?

The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question "Do you see the same truth?" would be "I see nothing and I don't care about the truth; I only want a Friend," no Friendship can arise - though Affection of course may. There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers.

Many things, such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly - are done worst when we try hardest to do them.

I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water...If I find in myself a desire, which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.