The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit, hour by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present, the exact present, that is unbearable.

The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or — if they think there is not — at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed.

Even in this world of course it is the stupidest children who are most childish and the stupidest grown-ups who are most grown-up.

The best swordsman in the world may be disarmed by a trick that's new to him.

The most precious gift that marriage gave me was the constant impact of something very close and intimate, yet all the time unmistakably other, resistant - in a word, real.

Nobody who gets enough food and clothing in a world where most are hungry and cold has any business to talk about 'misery.'