And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very undignified fun. Its sad tales are of broken hearts; its happy tales are of broken heads.

Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

It is often a mistake to combine two pleasures, because pleasures, like pains, can act as counter-irri-tants to each other.

St Thomas (Aqinas) loved books and lived on books... When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, ‘I have understood every page I ever read’.

The telescope makes the world smaller; it is only the microscope that makes it larger.

One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we are created.

Evil comes at leisure like the disease. Good comes in a hurry like the doctor.