The Space Trilogy: Three books in One : Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength

by C.S. Lewis

And this, O Piebald, is the glory and wonder you have made me see; that it is I, I myself, who turn from the good expected to the given good. Out of my own heart I do it.

“That also is a strange thing to say,” replied the Lady. “Who thought of its being hard? The beasts would not think it hard if I told them to walk on their heads. It would become their delight to walk on their heads. I am His beast, and all His biddings are joys. It is not that which makes me thoughtful. But it was coming into my mind to wonder whether there are two kinds of bidding.”

The fruit we are eating is always the best fruit of all.”

“I mean a thing might be a spirit and not good for you.” “But I thought you agreed that Spirit was the good—the end of the whole process? I thought you religious people were all out for spirituality?

What is the point of asceticism—fasts and celibacy and all that? Didn’t we agree that God is a spirit? Don’t you worship Him because He is pure spirit?” “Good heavens, no! We worship Him because He is wise and good.

There’s nothing specially fine about simply being a spirit. The...

“What proof,” said Ransom (who indeed did feel frightened), “what proof have you that you are being guided or supported by anything except your own individual mind and other people’s books?”

The world leaps forward through great men and greatness always transcends mere moralism.

He remembered his old suspicion that what was myth in one world might always be fact in some other.

“I am wondering,” said the woman’s voice, “whether all the people of your world have the habit of talking about the same thing more than once. I have said already that we are forbidden to dwell on the Fixed Land. Why do you not either talk of something else or stop talking?” “Because this forbidding is such a strange one,” said the Man’s voice. “And so unlike the ways of Maleldil in my world. And He has not forbidden you to think about dwelling on the Fixed Land.”

“What is the wisdom in it?” “Because the world is made up not only of what is but of what might be. Maleldil knows both and wants us to know both.” “This is more than I ever thought of. The other—the Piebald one—has already told me things which made me feel like a tree whose branches were growing wider and wider apart. But this goes beyond all. Stepping out of what is into what might be and talking and making things out there . . . alongside the world. I will ask the King what he thinks of it.” “You see, that is what we always come back to. If only you had not been parted from the King.” “Oh, I see. That also is one of the things that might be. The world might be so made that the King and I were never parted.” “The world would not have to be different—only the way you live. In a world where people live on the Fixed Lands they do not become suddenly separated.” “But you remember we are not to live on the Fixed Land.” “No, but He has never forbidden you to think about it. Might not that be one of the reasons why you are forbidden to do it—so that you may have a Might Be to think about, to

“I only meant you could become more like the women of my world.” “What are they like?” “They are of a great spirit. They always reach out their hands for the new and unexpected good, and see that it is good long before the men understand it. Their minds run ahead of what Maleldil has told them. They do not need to wait for Him to tell them what is good, but know it for themselves as He does. They are, as it were, little Maleldils. And because of their wisdom, their beauty is as much greater than yours as the sweetness of these gourds surpasses the taste of water. And because of their beauty the love which the men have for them is as much greater than the King’s love for you as the naked burning of Deep Heaven seen from my world is more wonderful than the golden roof of yours.”

As there is one Face above all worlds merely to see which is irrevocable joy, so at the bottom of all worlds that face is waiting whose sight alone is the misery from which none who beholds it can recover. And though there seemed to be, and indeed were, a thousand roads by which a man could walk through the world, there was not a single one which did not lead sooner or later either to the Beatific or the Miserific Vision.

It surprised him that he could experience so extreme a terror and yet be walking and thinking—as men in war or sickness are surprised to find how much can be borne. “It will drive us mad,” “It will kill us outright,” we say; and then it happens and we find ourselves neither mad nor dead, still held to the task.

If the issue lay in Maleldil’s hands, Ransom and the Lady were those hands. The fate of a world really depended on how they behaved in the next few hours.

The reason for not yet living on the Fixed Land is now so plain. How could I wish to live there except because it was Fixed? And why should I desire the Fixed except to make sure—to be able on one day to command where I should be the next and what should happen to me? It was to reject the wave—to draw my hands out of Maleldil’s, to say to Him, ‘Not thus, but thus’—to put in our own power what times should roll towards us . . . as if you gathered fruits together to-day for to-morrow’s eating instead of taking what came.

We have learned of evil, though not as the Evil One wished us to learn. We have learned better than that, and know it more, for it is waking that understands sleep and not sleep that understands waking.

There is an ignorance of evil that comes from being young: there is a darker ignorance that comes from doing it, as men by sleeping lose the knowledge of sleep.

When He died in the Wounded World He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less.

There seems no plan because it is all plan: there seems no centre because it is all centre. Blessed be He!”