For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.

What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?

We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness.

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.

Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything. But no, that is not quite accurate. There is one place where her absence comes locally home to me, and it is a place I can't avoid. I mean my own body. It had such a different importance while it was the body of H.'s lover. Now it's like an empty house.

Yes, I know,' interrupted Puddleglum. 'And few return to the sunlit lands. You needn't say it again. You are a chap of one idea, aren't you?

In coming to understand anything we are rejecting the facts as they are for us in favour of the facts as they are.