Children S Books

""Do you grow weary, Coriakin, of ruling such foolish subjects as I have given you here?" [Aslan asked.] "No," said the Magician, "they are very stupid but there is no real harm in them. I begin to grow rather fond of the creatures. Sometimes, perhaps, I am a little impatient, waiting for the day when they can be governed by wisdom instead of this rough magic." "All in good time, Coriakin," said Aslan. "Yes, all in very good time, Sir," was the answer."

"Aslan!" said Lucy almost a little reproachfully. "Don't make fun of me. As if anything I could do would make you visible!" "It did," said Aslan. "Do you think I wouldn't obey my own rules?"

"When she had got to the third page [of another story] and come to the end, she said, "That is the loveliest story I've ever read or ever shall read in my whole life. Oh, I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years. At least I'll read it over again." But here part of the magic of the Book came into play. You couldn't turn back. The right-hand pages, the ones ahead, could be turned; the left-hand pages could not. ... "It was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill, I know that much. But I can't remember, and what shall I do?""

"And all in a hurry, for fear her mind would change, she said the words [for a different spell] (nothing will induce me to tell you what they were). Then she waited for something to happen. As nothing happened she began looking at the pictures. And all at once she saw the very last thing she expected — a picture of a third-class carriage in a train, with two schoolgirls sitting in it. ... Only now it was much more than a picture. It was alive. She could see the telegraph posts flicking past outside the window."

""I will say the spell," said Lucy. "I don't care. I will." She said I don't care because she had a strong feeling that she mustn't. But when she looked back at the opening words of the spell, there in the middle of the writing, where she felt quite sure there had been no picture before, she found the great face of a lion, of The Lion, Aslan himself, staring into hers. It was painted such a bright gold that it seemed to be coming towards her out of the page; and indeed she never was quite sure afterwards that it hadn't really moved a little. At any rate, she knew the expression on his face quite well. He was growling and you could see most of his teeth. She became horribly afraid and turned over the page at once."

"They were cures for warts (by washing your hands in moonlight in a silver basin) and toothache and cramp, and a spell for taking a swarm of bees. The picture of the man with toothache was so lifelike that it would have set your own teeth aching if you looked at it too long, and the golden bees which were dotted all round the fourth spell looked for a moment as if they were really flying. ... And the longer she read the more wonderful and more real the pictures became."

"She tried to open it but couldn't at first; this, however, was only because it was fastened by two leaden clasps, and when she had undone these it opened easily enough. And what a book it was!"

"I don't know what the Bearded Glass was for because I am not a magician."

"In describing the scene Lucy said afterwards, "He was the size of an elephant," though at another time she only said, "The size of a cart-horse." But it was not the size that mattered. Nobody dared to ask what it was. They knew it was Aslan."

"The Lord Octesian's arm-ring had a curious fate. Eustace did not want it and offered it to Caspian, and Caspian offered it to Lucy. She did not care about having it. "Very well, then, catch as catch can," said Caspian and flung it up in the air. [...] Up went the ring, flashing in the sunlight, and caught, and hung, as neatly as a well-thrown quoit, on a little projection on the rock. No one could climb up to get it from below and no one could climb down to get it from above. And there, for all I know, it is hanging still and may hang till the world ends."

""But who is Aslan? Do you know him?" "Well — he knows me," said Edmund."

"Rise up, Sir Peter Wolf's-Bane. And, whatever happens, never forget to wipe your sword."

"He liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools."

"There was once a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. He didn't call his Father and Mother "Father" and "Mother", but Harold and Alberta. They [his family] were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and tee-totallers, and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on beds and the windows were always open."

"You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; Be content."

"Welcome, Prince," said Aslan. "Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?" "I — I don't think I do, Sir," said Caspian. "I'm only a kid." "Good," said Aslan. "If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not."

""Have you pen and ink, Master Doctor?" "A scholar is never without them, your Majesty," answered Doctor Cornelius."

""Sire," said Reepicheep [the chief mouse]. "My life is ever at your command, but my honour is my own. Sire, I have among my people the only trumpeter in your Majesty's army. I had thought, perhaps, we might have been sent with the challenge [to single combat between the High King Peter and King Miraz]. Sire, my people are grieved. Perhaps if it were your pleasure that I should be a marshal of the lists, it would content them." [...] "I am afraid it would not do," said Peter very gravely. "Some humans are afraid of mice—" "I have observed it, Sire," said Reepicheep. "And it would not be quite fair to Miraz," Peter continued, "to have in sight anything that might abate the edge of his courage." "Your Majesty is the mirror of honour," said the Mouse with one of his admirable bows."

"You have listened to fears, Child," said Aslan. "Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?"

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger." "That is because you are older, little one," answered he. "Not because you are?" "I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

"But what does it all mean?" asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer. "It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."

"Yes," said Peter, "I suppose what makes it feel so queer is that in the stories it's always someone in our world who does the calling. One doesn't really think about where the Jinn's coming from." "And now we know what it feels like for the Jinn," said Edmund with a chuckle. "Golly! It's a bit uncomfortable to know that we can be whistled for like that. It's worse than what Father says about living at the mercy of the telephone."

"But I thought you didn't believe in the Horn, Trumpkin," said Caspian. "No more I do, your Majesty. But what does that got to do with it? I might as well die on a wild goose chase as die here. You are my King. I know the difference between giving advice and giving orders. You have my advice and now it's the time for orders."

"If your Majesty is ever to use the Horn," said Trufflehunter, "I think the time has now come." Caspian had of course told them of his treasure several days ago. "We are certainly in great need," answered Caspian. "But it is hard to be sure we are at our greatest. Supposing there came an even worse need and we had already used it?" "By that argument," said Nikabrik, "your Majesty will never use it until it is too late." "I agree with that," said Doctor Cornelius. "And what do you think, Trumpkin?" asked Caspian. "Oh, as for me," said the Red Dwarf, who had been listening with complete indifference, "your Majesty knows I think the Horn—and that bit of broken stone over there and your great King Peter—and your Lion Aslan—are all eggs in moonshine. It's all one to me when your Majesty blows the Horn. All I insist on is that the army is told nothing about it. There's no good raising hopes of magical help which (as I think) are sure to be disappointed."

"Who believes in Aslan nowadays?"

"And that is the very end of the adventures of the wardrobe. But if the Professor was right it was only the beginning of the adventures of Narnia."

"What do they teach them at these schools?"

"“And more,” said Queen Lucy, “for it will not go out of my mind that if we pass this post and lantern either we shall find strange adventures or else some great change in our fortunes.” “Madam,” said King Edmund, “the like foreboding stirreth in my heart also.” “And in mine, fair brother,” said King Peter. “And in mine too,” said Queen Susan. “Wherefore by my counsel we shall lightly return to our horses and follow this White Stag no further.” “Madam,” said King Peter, “therein I pray thee to have me excused. For never since we four were Kings and Queens in Narnia have we set our hands to any high matter, as battles, quests, feats of arms, acts of justice, and the like, and then given over; but always what we have taken in hand, the same we have achieved.” “Sister,” said Queen Lucy, “my royal brother speaks rightly. And it seems to me we should be shamed if for any fearing or foreboding we turned back from following so noble a beast as now we have in chase.” “And so say I,” said King Edmund. “And I have such desire to find the signification of this thing that I would not by my own good will turn back for the richest jewel in all Narnia and all the islands.” “Then in the name of Aslan,” said Queen Susan, “if ye will all have it so, let us go on and take the adventure that shall fall to us.”"

"By the Lion's Mane, a strange device," said King Peter, "to set a lantern here where the trees cluster so thick about it and so high above it that if it were lit it should give light to no man!"

"“He’ll be coming and going” [...] “One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down — and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.""

"Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen."

"How Aslan provided food for them all I don't know; but somehow or other they found themselves all sitting down on the grass to a fine high tea at about eight o'clock."

"Is he—quite safe?" [...] "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."

"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight, At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more, When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."

"My Dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."

"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids."

"I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could."

"Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out 'allegories' to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn't write in that way. It all began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord."

""The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all stories, and we can most truly say they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

"So it was," said the Faun. "But you are now looking at the England within England, the real England just as this is the real Narnia. And in that inner England no good thing is destroyed."

"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 the mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the glass there may have been a 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 like it meant more. I can't describe it any better than that: if you ever get there you will know what I mean. It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried: "I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia so much is because it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!""

"Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of Thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek." [Emeth said,] "And this is the marvel of marvels, that he [Aslan] called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog — " "Eh? What's that?" said one of the Dogs. [...] "He doesn't mean any harm," said an older Dog. "After all, we call our puppies Boys when they don't behave properly." "So we do," said the first Dog. "Or girls." "S-s-sh!" said the Old Dog. "That's not a nice word to use. Remember where you are."

"Sir," said Emeth, "I do not know whether you are my friend or my foe, but I should count it to my honour to have you for either. Has not one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift and a noble enemy the next best?"

"True, I lie, I do! I was on the ship, hidden in the cargo hold. After I escaped the mining platform, there were those who wanted to bring me back to work in the mines. But I longed for Phindar. So here I am!"

"You weren't going to say goodbye? You were just going to leave?"

"We are not to know."

"We are to do."

"I don't mean to sound greedy, but may I have your meat?"

"Yes, we were talking about you, O Great Jemba. Come in... if you can."

"Jedi, you think yourself to be a fair man. But when Hutts and Humans argue, even the fairest of men take sides against my kind."