Sarah T. > Sarah's Quotes

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“The death of a beloved is an amputation.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Grief ... gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Aren't all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not 'So there's no God after all,' but 'So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just that time when God can't give it: you are like the drowning man who can't be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever." A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her. But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“The Black Horse made its beholder a master of combat. The Golden Egg granted great wealth. The Prophet offered glimpses of the future. The White Eagle bestowed courage. The Maiden bequeathed great beauty. The Chalice turned liquid into truth serum. The Well gave clear sight to recognize one’s enemies. The Iron Gate offered blissful serenity, no matter the struggle. The Scythe gave its beholder the power to control others. The Mirror granted invisibility. The Nightmare allowed its user to speak into the minds of others. The Twin Alders had the power to commune with Blunder’s ancient entity, the Spirit of the Wood.”
― Rachel Gillig, One Dark Window

“Are you still pretending?” I said, reveling in his gaze. Ravyn gave a surprised laugh and, in front of everyone, leaned in and kissed me. “I never was,” he whispered into my lips.”
― Rachel Gillig, One Dark Window

“What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Why do we tell stories? They are a universal human experience. Every culture I’ve ever visited, every people I’ve met, every human on every planet in every situation I’ve seen…they all tell stories. Men trapped alone for years tell them to themselves. Ancients leave them painted on the walls. Women whisper them to their babies. Stories explain us. You want to define what makes a human different from an animal? I can do it in one word or a hundred thousand. Sad stories. Exultant stories. Didactic morality tales. Frivolous yarns that, paradoxically, carry too much meaning. We need stories.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“It’s a common mistake to assume that someone is weak because they are accommodating. If you think this, you might be the type who has no idea how much effort—how much strength—it takes to put up with your nonsense.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“Plus, here’s the thing. A kiss doesn’t need to be good to be valuable. It doesn’t serve any real purpose. It’s valued solely because of the person you share it with.
Things only have the value we give to them. And likewise, actions can be worth whatever we decide them to be worth.
And so, to these two, that kiss was priceless.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“I commend my soul to any god that can find it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“There is always a choice."
"You mean I could choose certain death?"
"A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“If he'd been a hero, he would have taken the opportunity to say, "That's what I call sorted!" Since he wasn't a hero, he threw up.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Welcome to fear, said Moist to himself. It's hope, turned inside out. You know it can't go wrong, you're sure it can't go wrong...But it might.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“ALWAYS REMEMBER that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal