Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis

They see the world around them swayed by emotional propaganda; they have learned from tradition that youth is sentimental; and they conclude that the best thing they can do is to fortify the minds of young people against…

Well, sir, if things are real, they're there all the time.Are they? said the Professor; and Peter did not quite know what to say.

The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.

God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks…

Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for most of us it is only an imaginary country. Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect.

First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other. If…