We can never know what might have been but what is to come is another matter entirely

Not to be, but to seem, virtuous - it is a formula whose utility we all discovered in the nursery.

When the police arrived and found no lion, no broken wall, and no convicts, and the Head behaving like a lunatic, there was an inquiry into the whole thing. And in the inquiry all sorts of things about Experiment House came out, and about ten people got expelled. After that, the Head's friends saw that the Head was no use as a Head, so they got her made an Inspector to interfere with other Heads. And when they found she wasn't much good even at that, they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after.

If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone.

When the opposite of your prayer occurs, your prayer hasn't been ignored; it's been considered & refused for your ultimate good.

For they (art and music) are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

The more we get what we now call 'ourselves' out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.