The Chronicles of Narnia Quotes

“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

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“When the two people who thus discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, the friendship which arises between them will very easily pass – may pass in the first half hour – into erotic love. Indeed, unless they are physically repulsive to each other or unless one or both already loves elsewhere, it is almost certain to do so sooner or later. And conversely, erotic love may lead to Friendship between the lovers. But this, so far from obliterating the distinction between the two loves, puts it in a clearer light. If one who was first, in the deep and full sense, your Friend, is then gradually or suddenly revealed as also your lover you will certainly not want to share the Beloved’s erotic love with any third. But you will have no jealousy at all about sharing the Friendship. Nothing so enriches an erotic love as the discovery that the Beloved can deeply, truly and spontaneously enter into Friendship with the Friends you already had; to feel that not only are we two united by erotic love but we three or four or five are all travelers on the same quest, have all a common vision.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you," said the Lion.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Numbers don't win a battle.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“But courage, child: we are all between the paws of the true Aslan.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Oh, Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good!”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Safe?" said Mr. Beaver."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what he had to do.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“This was bad grammar of course, but that is how beavers talk when they are excited; I mean, in Narnia--in our world they usually don't talk at all.
- The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“But, first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“The mark of Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“I am [in your world].’ said Aslan. ‘But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“But very quickly they all became grave again: for, as you know, there is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“A dragon has just flown over the tree-tops and lighted on the beach. Yes, I am afraid it is between us and the ship. And arrows are no use against dragons. And they're not at all afraid of fire."

"With your Majesty's leave-" began Reepicheep.

"No, Reepicheep," said the King very firmly, "you are not to attempt a single combat with it.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“One of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you anymore you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Lucy woke out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different - deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“This is the land of Narnia,' said the Faun, 'where we are now; all that lies between the lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel on the eastern sea.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“He is not a tame lion," said Tirian. "How should we know what he would do? We, who are murderers. Jewel, I will go back. I will give up my sword and put myself in the hands of these Calormenes and ask that they bring me before Aslan. Let him do justice on me."
"You will go to your death, then," said Jewel.
"Do you think I care if Aslan dooms me to death?" said the King. "That would be nothing, nothing at all. Would it not be better to be dead than to have this horrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in and longed for? It is as if the sun rose one day and were a black sun."
"I know," said Jewel. "Or as if you drank water and it were dry water. You are in the right, Sire. This is the end of all things. Let us go and give ourselves up."
"There is no need for both of us to go."
"If ever we loved one another, let me go with you now," said the Unicorn. "If you are dead and if Aslan is not Aslan, what life is left for me?”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“We're free Narnians, Hwin and I, and I suppose, if you're running away to Narnia you want to be one too. In that case Hwin isn't your horse any longer. One might just as well say you're her human.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Now sir, said the bulldog in his business-like way. 'Are you a animal, vegetable, or mineral?'
- The Magician's Nephew”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Narnia! It's all in the wardrobe just like I told you!”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“They call him Aslan in That Place," said Eustace.
"What a curious name!"
"Not half so curious as himself," said Eustace solemnly.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our natural lives.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“I think you've seen Aslan," said Edmund.
"Aslan!" said Eustace. "I've heard that name mentioned several times since we joined the Dawn Treader. And I felt - I don't know what - I hated it. But I was hating everything then. And by the way, I'd like to apologise. I'm afraid I've been pretty beastly."
"That's all right," said Edmund. "Between ourselves, you haven't been as bad as I was on my first trip to Narnia. You were only an ass, but I was a traitor."
"Well, don't tell me about it, then," said Eustace. "But who is Aslan? Do you know him?"
"Well - he knows me," said Edmund. "He is the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia. We've all seen him. Lucy sees him most often. And it may be Aslan's country we are sailing to.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together; each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day's walk have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze and our drinks are at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life — natural life — has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it?”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“You see, Aslan didn't tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us once he's up, I shouldn't wonder. But that doesn't let us off following the signs.
- The Silver Chair”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Girls aren't very good at keeping maps in their brains", said Edmund, "That's because we've got something in them", replied Lucy.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“When the police arrived and found no lion, no broken wall, and no convicts, and the Head behaving like a lunatic, there was an inquiry into the whole thing. And in the inquiry all sorts of things about Experiment House came out, and about ten people got expelled. After that, the Head's friends saw that the Head was no use as a Head, so they got her made an Inspector to interfere with other Heads. And when they found she wasn't much good even at that, they got her into Parliament where she lived happily ever after.”
― C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia

“all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“For Narnia… and for Aslan!
- Peter Pevensie”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“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.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Last year, when he had been staying with the Pevensies, he had managed to hear them all talking of Narnia and he loved teasing them about it. He thought of course that they were making it all up; and as he was far too stupid to make anything up himself, he did not approve of that.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Murder! Fascists! Lions! It isn't fair.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris-
ing generation. I am an oldster myself and might be
expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have
been far more impressed by the bad manners of par-
ents to children than by those of children to parents.
Who has not been the embarrassed guest at family
meals where the father or mother treated their
grown-up offspring with an incivility which, offered
to any other young people, would simply have termi-
nated the acquaintance? Dogmatic assertions on mat-
ters which the children understand and their elders
don't, ruthless interruptions, flat contradictions,
ridicule of things the young take seriously some-
times of their religion insulting references to their
friends, all provide an easy answer to the question
"Why are they always out? Why do they like every
house better than their home?" Who does not prefer
civility to barbarism?”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Though under earth, and throneless now I be
Yet while I lived all earth was under me.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“For jokes as well as justice come in with speech.
- Aslan, The Magician's Nephew”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“More like the real thing,' said the lord Digory softly.
- The Last Battle”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“That world is ended, as if it had never been. Let the race of Adam and Eve take warning.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“I'm hunger. I'm thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy's body and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me your enemies.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Even I never dreamed of Magic like this!”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“When I'm older I'll understand" said Lucy, " I am older and I don't think I want to understand", replied Edmund”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

“I object to that remark very strongly!
- The Magician's Nephew”
― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia