Nothing is wonderful except in the abnormal, and nothing is abnormal until we have grasped the norm.

We sit down before the picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way (there is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.

But if we admit God, must we admit Miracle? Indeed, indeed, you have no security against it. That is the bargain. Theology says to you in effect, 'Admit God and with Him the risk of a few miracles, and I in return will ratify your faith in uniformity as regards the overwhelming majority of events.

Edmund, give a special goodbye to Trumpkin for me. He's been a brick.

Periods' are largely an invention of the historians. The poets themselves are not conscious of living in any period and refuse to conform to the scheme.

The road to the promised land runs past Sinai.

We know we are sinners, it does not follow that we are saved.