Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.

If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must think of God as the whole page on which the line is drawn.

Monarchy can easily be "debunked," but watch the faces, mark well the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach - men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes or film stars instead: For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.

The Christian has a great advantage over other men, not by being less fallen than they, nor less doomed to live in a fallen world, but by knowing that he is a fallen man in a fallen world.

Every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us - an energy which, if not thus distorted, would have blossomed into one of those holy acts whereof 'God did it' and 'I did it' are both true descriptions.

I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.

Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about...)