Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy, #1)

by C.S. Lewis

Moreover, he knew nothing yet well enough to see it: you cannot see things till you know roughly what they are.

how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back—if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day?”

We think that Maleldil would not give it up utterly to the Bent One, and there are stories among us that He has taken strange counsel and dared terrible things, wrestling with the Bent One in Thulcandra. But of this we know less than you; it is a thing we desire to look into.”

If they had come a few miles to see me I would have received them honorably; now they have twice gone a voyage of millions of miles for nothing and will appear before me none the less.

You do not understand, and it makes you do reverence to nothings and pass by what is really great.

To every man, in his acquaintance with a new art, there comes a moment when that which before was meaningless first lifts, as it were, one corner of the curtain that hides its mystery, and reveals, in a burst of delight which later and fuller understanding can hardly ever equal, one glimpse of the indefinite possibilities within.

He has left you this one because a bent hnau can do more evil than a broken one.

The weakest of my people does not fear death. It is the Bent One, the lord of your world, who wastes your lives and befouls them with flying from what you know will overtake you in the end. If you were subjects of Maleldil you would have peace.”