You and I who still enjoy fairy tales have less reason to wish actual childhood back. We have kept its pleasures and added some grown-up ones as well.
C. S. LewisVanity is really the least bad and most pardonable sort. The vain person wants praise, applause, admiration too much and is always angling for it. It is a fault, but a childlike and even (in an odd way) a humble fault. It shows that you are not yet completely contented with your own admiration. You value other people enough to want them to look at you. You are in fact still human.
C. S. LewisAnd out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human historyโmoney, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slaveryโthe long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
C. S. LewisJesus produced mainly three effects: hatred, terror, adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.
C. S. LewisIt is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one's adult enjoyment of what are called 'children's books.' I think the convention a silly one. No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty-except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all. A mature palate will probably not much care for crรจme de menthe: but it ought still to enjoy bread and butter and honey.
C. S. Lewis