There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

Ye cannot know eternal reality by a definition. Time itself, and all the acts and events that fill time are the definition, and it must be lived.

My son, by all means desist from kicking the venerable and enlightened Vizier: for as a costly jewel retains its value even if hidden in a dung-hill, so old age and discretion are to be respected even in the vile persons of our subjects. Desist therefore, and tell us what you desire and propose.

When you invite a middle-aged moralist to address you, I suppose I must conclude that you have a taste for middle-aged moralizing.

What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?'

You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?

All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness.