2,254 Quotes by C. S. Lewis

God is not an optional extra, He's an absolute must!

No thanks," said Digory, "I don't know that I care much about living on and on after everyone I know is dead. I'd rather live an ordinary time and die and go to Heaven.

When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.

There is something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on. But there's also something in it which makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly. Brass is mistaken for gold more easily than clay is. And if it finally refuses conversion its corruption will be worse than the corruption of what ye call the lower passions. It is a stronger angel, and therefor, when it falls, a fiercer devil.

Looking for God-or Heaven-by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters...

Other than heaven, the only place where one's heart is completely safe from the dangers of love is hell.

What do they teach them at these schools?

When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less.

Joy is the serious business of heaven. Our merriment must be between people who take each other seriously.