In Bright Shadow: C.S. Lewis on the Imagination for Theology and Discipleship

Man is born to trouble. Man is born for trouble. Man is born to battle trouble. Man is born for the fight, to be forged and molded--under torch and hammer and chisel--into a sharper, finer, stronger image of God.

What I say is, don't go playing unless you can win. Only sit down to chess with idiots, only kick a dog what's dead already, and don't love a lady unless she loves you first.

Do not fear the shadowy places. You will never be the first one there. Another went ahead and down until He came out the other side.

You fainted,' Tom said. Reg coughed. No, I didn't,' he said. 'Women faint. People afraid of needles faint. Men black out.

Narrative living is the beginning of rhetoric.

Lay your life down. Your heartbeats cannot be hoarded. Your reservoir of breaths is draining away. You have hands, blister them while you can. You have bones, make them strain - they can carry nothing in the grave. You have lungs, let them spill with laughter.