"But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos becomes essential."

"Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else."

"Just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist."

"The writer does want to be published; the painter urgently hopes that someone will see the finished canvas (van Gogh was denied the satisfaction of having his work bought and appreciated during his lifetime; no wonder the pain was more than he could bear); the composer needs his music to be heard. Art is communication, and if there is no communication it is as though the work has been stillborn."

"If it can be verified, we don't need faith... Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys."

"If the artist reflects only his own culture, then his works will die with that culture. But if his works reflect the eternal and universal, they will revive."

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."

"Goodbyes are not easy, but I'm ready to move on. I'm not reluctant, Emma, not holding back. I don't have answers to the questions, but I have some good questions. I have loved life, but I believe that life is to be loved, it is a gift."

"I am slowly coming to understand with all my heart as well as my head that love is not a feeling. It is a person."

"To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory."

"We all tend to make zealous judgement, and thereby close ourselves off from revelation."

"A great ring of pure & endless lightDazzles the darkness in my heartAnd breaks apart the dusky clouds of night.The end of all is hinted in the start.When we are born we bear the seeds of blight;Around us life & death are torn apart,Yet a great ring of pure and endless lightDazzles the darkness in my heart.It lights the world to my delight.Infinity is present in each part.A loving smile contains all art.The motes of starlight spark & dart.A grain of sand holds power & might.Infinity is present in each part,And a great ring of pure and endless lightDazzles the darkness in my heart."

"Right now I am like the unborn baby in the womb, knowing nothing except the comforting warmth of the amniotic fluid in which I swim, the comforting nourishment entering my body from a source I cannot see or understand. My whole being comes from an unseen, unknown nurturer. By that nurturer I am totally loved and protected, and that love is forever. It does not end when I am precipitated out of the safe waters of the womb into the unsafe world. It will. It end when I breathe my last, mortal breath. That love manifested itself joyously in the creation of the universe, became particular for us in Jesus, and will show itself most gloriously in the Second Coming. We need not fear."

"For an artist is not a consumer, as our commercials urge us to be. An artist is a nourisher and a creator who knows that during the act of creation there is collaboration. We do not create alone."

"That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along."

"Gregory of Nyssa points out that Moses's vision of God began with the light, with the visible burning bush, the bush which was bright with fire and was not consumed; but afterwards, God spoke to him in a cloud. After the glory which could be seen with human eyes, he began to see the glory which is beyond and after light. The shadows are deepening all around us."

"It takes too much energy to be against something unless it's really important."

"In your language you have a form of poetry called a sonnet...It is a very strict form of poetry, is it not?...There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?...And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?''No.''But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn't he?''Yes." Calvin nodded again.'So,' said Mrs. Whatsit.'So what?''Oh, do not be stupid, boy!' Mrs. Whatsit scolded. 'You know perfectly well what I am driving at!''You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but with freedom within it?''Yes,' Mrs. Whatsit said. "You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself."

"You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father."

"A book, too, can be a star 'explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly."

"Lords of blue and Lords of gold,Lords of wind and waters wild,Lords of time that's growing old,When will come the season mild?When will come blue Madoc's child?"

"Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos, we see despite all the chaos."

"Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it."

"Meg's eyes were too bright. "I wish human beings couldn't have feelings. I am having feelings. They hurt."

"There's no such thing as an unbreakable scientific rule, because, sooner or later, they all seem to get broken. Or to change."

"But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career."

"Who makes you least confused?""Calvin" There was no hesitation here. "When I'm with Calvin, I don't mind being me""You mean he makes you more you, don't you?""I guess you could put it that way."

"We have much to be judged on when he comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness and the result of our failures in love."

"The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain."

"Stories, no matter how simple, can be vehicles of truth; can be, in fact, icons. It's no coincidence that Jesus taught almost entirely by telling stories, simple stories dealing with the stuff of life familiar to the Jews of his day. Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos."

"This wasn't the first time that I'd come close to death, but it was the first time I'd been involved in this part of it, this strange, terrible saying goodbye to someone you've loved."

"You cannot see the past that did not happen any more than you can foresee the future."

"Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are."

"Lords of melody and song,Lords of roses burning bright,Blue will right the ancient wrong,Though the way is dark and long,Blue will shine with loving light."

"In reading we must become creators."

"Nothing loved is ever lost or perished."

"The story comes, and it is pure story. That's all I set out to write. But I don't believe that we can write any kind of story without including, whether we intend to or not, our response to the world around us."

"What we are is going to be visible in our art, no matter how secular (on the surface) the subject may be."

"There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation."

"I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly."

"When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable."

"If we all knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we's tend not to notice the sunrise, or hear the birds, or the waves rolling into the shore. We'd tend not to treasure our time with the people we love. Simply the awareness that our mortal lives had a beginning and will have an end enhances the quality of our living. Perhaps it's even more intense when we know that the termination of the body is near, but it shouldn't be."

"It was still twilight when they reached the flat rock. They sat, and the stone still held the warmth of the day's sun. At first there were only occasional sparkles, but as it got darker Chuck was lost in a daze pf delight as a galaxy of fireflies twinkled on and off, flinging upward in a blaze of light, dropping earthward like falling stars, moving in contiuous effervescent dance."

"Lords of fire and earth and water,Lords of moon and wind and sky,Come now to the Old Man's daughter,Come from fathers long gone by.Bring blue from a distance eye.Lords of water, earth, and fire,Lords of wind and snow and rain,Give to my heart's desire.Life as all life comes with pain,But blue will come to us again."

"Pray all you like, ask anything you want, but don't forget that he never promised he'd say yes. He never guaranteed us anything. Not anything at all. Except one thing. Just one thing . . . . That he cares . . . That is all. Nothing else."

"If we allow our "high creativity" to remain alive, we will never be bored. We can pray, standing in line at the super market. Or we can be lost in awe at all the people around us, their lives full of glory and tragedy, and suddenly we will have the beginnings of a painting, a story, a song."

"Silence fell between them, as tangible as the dark tree shadows that fell across their laps and that now seemed to rest upon them as heavily as though they possessed a measurable weight of their own."

"When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens."

"Hate is like cancer, separate from the normal cells, devouring and not being nourished, annihilating itself along with everything it attacks."

"Because we suddenly see that making everything all right would NOT make everything all right. We would not be human beings. We would then be no more than puppets obeying the strings of the master puppeteer. We agree sadly that it is a good thing that we are not God; we do not have to understand God's ways, or the suffering and brokenness and pain that sooner or later come to us all."