"We read to know that we are not alone."
— C.S. Lewis

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."
— C.S. Lewis

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
— C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."
— C.S. Lewis

"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."
— C.S. Lewis

"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond."
— C.S. Lewis

"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."
— C.S. Lewis (The World's Last Night: And Other Essays)

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
— C.S. Lewis (The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader")

"Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably."
— C.S. Lewis

"It is a good rule . . . to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books."
— C.S. Lewis

"Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don't try to get there at all. It'll happen when you're not looking for it. And don't talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don't mention it to anyone else unless you find that they've had adventures of the same sort themselves. What's that? How will you know? Oh, you'll know all right. Odd things, they say-even their looks-will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools."
-The Profesor"
— C.S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

"To the glistening eastern sea, I give you Queen Lucy the Valiant. To the great western woods, King Edmund the Just. To the radiant southern sun, Queen Susan the Gentle. And to the clear northern skies, I give you King Peter the Magnificent. Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia. May your wisdom grace us until the stars rain down from the heavens."
— C.S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

"He's not safe, but he's good (referring to Aslan, the Lion, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)"
— C.S. Lewis

"I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis."
— C.S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

"...here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Here is a book which will break your heart." [on Lord of the Rings]"
— C.S. Lewis

"Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker."
— C.S. Lewis

"I desired dragons with a profound desire."
— C.S. Lewis (Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories)

"Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had."
— C.S. Lewis (The Magician's Nephew)

"Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else."
— C.S. Lewis

"We don't need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever."
— Philip Pullman

"After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world."
— Philip Pullman

"I write almost always in the third person, and I don't think the narrator is male or female anyway. They're both, and young and old, and wise and silly, and sceptical and credulous, and innocent and experienced, all at once. Narrators are not even human - they're sprites."
— Philip Pullman

"There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book."
— Philip Pullman

"I am a story teller. If I wanted to send a message I would have written a sermon."
— Philip Pullman

"'I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.'"
— Philip Pullman (The Amber Spyglass)

"You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. We bear their children, who are witches if they are female, human if not; and then in the blink of an eye they are gone, felled, slain, lost. Our sons, too. When a little boy is growing, he thinks he is immortal. His mother knows he isn't. Each time becomes more painful, until finally your heart is broken. Perhaps that is when Yambe-Akka comes for you. She is older than the tundra. Perhaps, for her, witches' lives are as brief as men's are to us."
— Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass)

"I am a strong believer in the tyranny, the dictatorship, the absolute authority of the writer."
— Philip Pullman

"Was there only one world after all which spent its time dreaming of others?"
— Philip Pullman

""We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not, or die of despair...death will sweep through all the worlds; it will be the triumph of despair, forever. The universes will all become nothing more than interlocking machines, blind and empty of thought, feeling, life...""
— Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass)

"I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read."
— Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass (afterword)

"Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, and clever."
— Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass)

"She was riding a bear! And the Aurora was swaying above them in golden arcs and loops, and all around was the bitter Arctic cold and the immense silence of the North."
— Philip Pullman

"Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would... and then someone passed me a bit of some sweet stuff, and suddenly I realized that I had been to China. So to speak. And I'd forgotten it."
— Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials Trilogy)

"I will love you for ever, whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again…"
— Philip Pullman (The Amber Spyglass)

"He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world.

She was the book thief without the words.

Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain."
— Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)

"I am haunted by humans."
— Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)

"A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship."
— Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)

"She said it out loud, the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books. Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving. It was barely possible to see paintwork. There were all different styles and sizes of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the gray, the every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Liesel Meminger had ever seen.

With wonder, she smiled.

That such a room existed!"
— Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)

"Even death has a heart. "
— Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)

"She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it)."
— Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)

"Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!'"
— Lewis Carroll

"if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later. "
— Lewis Carroll

"Do you know, I always thought unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!"

"Well, now that we have seen each other," said the unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.""
— Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass)

"He was part of my dream, of course -- but then I was part of his dream, too."
— Lewis Carroll

"Tut, tut, child!" said the Duchess. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."
— Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)

"Just look down the road and tell me if you see either of them."
"I see nobody on the road." said Alice.
"I only wish I had such eyes to see Nobody! And at such a distance too!"
— Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)

"'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversation?'"
— Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)

"I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.""
— Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)

""it's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," says the White Queen to Alice."
— Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)

"Sentence first; verdict afterwards." -Queen of Hearts"
— Lewis Carroll