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.

The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.

We do not want to merely “see” beauty. We want to be united with it, to receive it into ourselves, to become part of it.

Golly,' said Edmund under his breath, 'He's a retired star.

Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to believe in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it.

You can do more with a castle in a story than with the best cardboard castle that ever stood on a nursery table.

God is basic Fact. He must not be thought of as a featureless generality. He is the most concrete thing there is.