The Chronicles of Narnia

“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.”

“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen.”

“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!”

“What do they teach them at these schools?”

“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.”

“Who believes in Aslan nowadays?”

“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"”

“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.”

“Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger.""I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

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

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

“Welcome, Prince," said Aslan. "Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?" "Good," said Aslan. "If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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!”

“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.”

“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?”

“"Do you grow weary, Coriakin, of ruling such foolish subjects as I have given you here?" [Aslan asked.]"Yes, all in very good time, Sir," was the answer.”

“Please, Aslan," said Lucy, "what do you call soon?" "Come," said the Magician. "All times may be soon to Aslan, but in my home all hungry times are one o'clock.”

“Of course I could turn him [the Chief Duffer] into something else, or even put a spell on him which would make them not believe a word he said. But I don't like to do that. It's better for them to admire him than to admire nobody.”

“A few months ago they [the Duffers] were all for washing up the plates and knives before dinner: they said it saved time afterwards. I've caught them planting boiled potatoes to save cooking them when they were dug up. One day the cat got into the dairy and twenty of them were at work moving all the milk out; no one thought of moving the cat.”

“Fools!" said the man, stamping his foot with rage. "That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I'd better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams — dreams, do you understand — come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.”

“"You can say what you like, Reepicheep. There are some things no man can face." "It is, then, my good fortune not to be a man," replied Reepicheep with a very stiff bow.”

“Courage, dear heart”

“My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise and Peepiceek shall be head of the talking mice in Narnia”

“"You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you," said the Lion.”

“Puddleglum's my name. But it doesn't matter if you forget it. I can always tell you again.”

“I hope you won't lose all interest in Jill for the rest of the book if I tell you that at this moment she began to cry.”

“It is the stupidest children who are most childish and the stupidest grown-ups who are most grown-up.”

“It's a lion, I know it's a lion," thought Shasta. "I'm done. I wonder, will it hurt much? I wish it was over. I wonder, does anything happen to people after they're dead? O-o-oh! Here it comes! ... Why, it's not nearly as big as I thought! It's only half the size. No, it isn't even quarter the size. I do declare it's only the cat!! I must have dreamed all that about its being as big as a horse.”

“And of course he knew none of the true stories about Aslan, the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, the King above all High Kings in Narnia. But after one glance at the Lion's face he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He couldn't say anything but then he didn't want to say anything, and he knew he needn't say anything.”

“"But of course that was the same boat that Aslan (he seems to be at the back of all the stories) pushed ashore at the right place for Asheesh to pick me up. I wish I knew that knight's name, fore he must have kept me alive and starved himself to do it" "I was forgetting that," said Cor.”

“Then Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh, and trotted across to the Lion. "Dearest daughter," said Aslan, planting a lion's kiss on her twitching, velvet nose, "I knew you would not be long in coming to me. Joy shall be yours."”

“But that's just the point," groaned Bree. "Do Talking Horses roll? Supposing they don't? I can't bear to give it up. What do you think, Hwin?" "I'm going to roll anyway," said Hwin. "I don't suppose any of them will care two lumps of sugar whether you roll or not.”

“Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I'm afraid, even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.”

“In those days Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road.”

“Make your choice, adventurous Stranger; What would have followed if you had.”

“Laugh and fear not, creatures. Now that you are no longer dumb and witless, you need not always be grave. For jokes as well as justice come in with speech.”

“What did he say had entered the world? — A Neevil — What's a Neevil? — No, he didn't say a Neevil, he said a weevil — Well, what's that?”

“No, we're not lettuce, honestly we're not," said Polly hastily. "We're not at all nice to eat.""There!" said the Mole. "They can talk. Who ever heard of a talking lettuce?”

“The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.”

“No thanks," said Digory, "I don't know that I care much about living on and on after everyone I know is dead. I'd rather live an ordinary time and die and go to Heaven.”

“He [Digory] was very sad and he wasn't even sure all the time that he had done the right thing; but whenever he remembered the shining tears in Aslan's eyes he became sure.”

“But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. [...] But I will give him the only gift he is able to receive. [...] Sleep and be separated for some few hours from all the torments you have devised for yourself.”

“All get what they want; they do not always like it.”

“When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better.”

“Puzzle [the Donkey] looked and felt a good deal better that morning. Jewel, being a Unicorn and therefore one of the noblest and delicatest of beasts, had been very kind to him, talking to him about things of the sort they could both understand like grass and sugar and the care of one's hoofs.”

“So," said the King, after a long silence, "Narnia is no more.”

“Nothing now remains for us seven but to go back to Stable Hill, proclaim the truth, and take the adventure that Aslan sends us.”

“I was going to say I wished we'd never come. But I don't, I don't, I don't. Even if we are killed. I'd rather be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a Bath chair and then die in the end just the same." "Or be smashed up by British Railways!”

“The door was simply standing up by itself as if it had grown there like a tree. "Fair Sir," said Tirian to the High King, "this is a great marvel."”

“He [Aslan] went to the door and they all followed him. He raised his head and roared, "Now it is time!" then louder, "Time!"; then so loud that is could have shaken the stars, "TIME." The Door flew open.”

“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?”

“[Emeth said,] "And this is the marvel of marvels, that he [Aslan] called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog — ""S-s-sh!" said the Old Dog. "That's not a nice word to use. Remember where you are."”

“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.”