C.S. Lewis — People

Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself."

C.S. Lewis

If, as I can’t help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.

C.S. Lewis

I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow however turns out to be not a state but a process.

C.S. Lewis

It is hard to have patience with people who say "There is no death" or "Death doesn't matter." There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter.

C.S. Lewis

Painterly empty armchair draped with a blue scarf beside a small table and frosted window. — Original artwork

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

C.S. Lewis

A brass megaphone sends out radiating golden light above red cloth against deep crimson. — Original artwork

Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

C.S. Lewis

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

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war.... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

C.S. Lewis

The pain now is part of the happiness then.

C.S. Lewis

A pale sandy path curves around dark rocks and disappears into soft gray mist. — Original artwork

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

C.S. Lewis