01UndatedSelf-deprecation is the appropriate response of any new convert, as he matches his stained soul against the purity of God.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
02UndatedWe still thought that we were the only two people in the world who were interested in the right kind of things in the right kind of way. C.S. LewisPhilip Zaleski / quote ↗
03UndatedThe author observes of the Inklings, "they make a perfect compass rose of faith: talking the Catholic, Lewis the "mere Christian," Williams the Anglican, Barfield the esotericist.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
04UndatedBarfield understood his epochal experience are not as a rebound from love sickness, but as a spiritual epiphany that cured a spiritual illness.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
05UndatedLewis was studying literary history with the present and future in mind.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
06UndatedRecovery is the ability to see things with clarity, "freed from the drab blur of greatness or familiarity – from possessiveness.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
07UndatedKindness and pain, joy and suffering are twins in this fallen world.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
08UndatedJ.R.R. Tolkien, said a student, "could turn a lecture room into a mead hall in which he was the bard and we were the feasting, listening guests.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
09UndatedPoetry of World War I, at least in its lyrical mode, was itself the last flowering of the Age of Innocence that preceded the war, that the horrors of the trenches sparked the final blossoming, as friction gives rise to fire; that the daily nightmare unfolding before the soldiers sharpened their sense of beauty, prophecy, and mission.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
10UndatedLike all great readers, he could create for himself a "wall of stillness".Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
12UndatedAll images and sensations, if idolatrously mistaken for Joy itself, soon honestly confessed themselves inadequate. All said, in a last resort, "It is not high. I am only a reminder. Look! Look! What do I remind you of?" CS LewisPhilip Zaleski / quote ↗
13UndatedI said to all the things that throng about the gateways of the senses: "Tell me of my God, since you are not He. Tell me something of Him." And they cried out in a great voice: "He made us." CS LewisPhilip Zaleski / quote ↗
14UndatedThe longing for Joy is in itself Joy. When he recalled when he had experienced Joy, he was, in that recollection, experiencing Joy anew, though he knew it not. Joy was not a state; it was an arrow pointing to something beyond all states, something objective yet unattainable – at least in our earthly existence.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
15UndatedJ.R.R. Tolkien told a questioning correspondent, life's purpose is to know, praise, and thank God.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
16UndatedEveryone and everything needed to be raised to its highest level – the teacher must become a mage, the husband a knight errant, the labor a hero in a sacred drama – intensified, rarefied, baptized in the turbulent waters of restlessness, curiosity, and ardor.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
17UndatedChristian myth, reveals the truth that "the Christian was (and is) still like his forefathers a mortal hemmed into a hostile world.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
18UndatedObedience appears to me more and more the whole business of life, the only road to love and peace.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
20UndatedShame and suffering, as St. Bernard says, are the two ladder-uprights which are set up to heaven, and between those two uprights are the rungs of all virtues fixed, by which one climbs to the joy of heaven… In these two things, in which is all penance, rejoice and be glad, for in return for these, twofold blisses are prepared: in return for shame honour; in return for suffering, delight and rest without end.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
21UndatedA Christian's duty, Lewis believed, is not simply to tolerate "X" but to make life with "X" an occasion to work on one's own character flaws.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
22UndatedIt's not easy being a missionary, even with the key to the cosmos in your hand.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
23UndatedThe teacher-student relationship evaporated, replaced by a rich and lively exchange of equals.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
24UndatedHe would henceforth worship and defend the very reason for Joy, the Almighty Maker of Joy.Philip Zaleski / quote ↗
