I know all about the repair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience etc. don't get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ...
We must learn by experience to avoid either trains of thought or social situations which FOR US (not necessarily for everyone) lead to temptations. Like motoring—don’t wait till the last moment before you put on the brakes but put them on, gently...
I have been talking of the past (your past and mine) only in order that you may turn from it forever. One wrench and the tooth will be out. You can begin as if nothing had ever gone wrong. White as snow.
If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven; if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.
It is my opinion that a story worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.
I wanted not the momentary suspense but the whole world to which it belonged.
To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also to receive the myth (the fact that what has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accorded to all myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other.
If I said God is "outside" or "beyond" space-time, I should mean as Shakespeare is outside The Tempest; i.e. its scenes and persons do not exhaust his being.
Nothing is yet in its true form.
On avoiding the darker side of life in educational literature for children: "There is something ludicrous in the idea of so educating a generation which is born to the atomic bomb. Since it is likely that they will meet cruel enemies, but then at lea...
He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles.
Affliction is often that thing which prepares an ordinary person for some sort of an extraordinary destiny.
The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.
If there is a wasp in the room, I’d like to be able to see it.
Don't say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me.
We laymen may not be busier than the clergy but we usually have much less choice in our hours of business. The celebrant who lengthens the service by ten minutes may, for us, throw the whole day into hurry and confusion.
Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.
I never exactly made a book. It's rather like taking dictation. I was given things to say.
You can make anything by writing.
You can make anything out of writing.
