Pearls

16/12/55
It is a dreadful truth that the state of having to depend solely on God is what we all dread most.

28 March 1961
Humans are very seldom either totally sincere or totally hypocritical. Their moods change, their motives are mixed, and they are often themselves quite mistaken as to what their motives are.

8 Nov 62
The truth is that the only alternatives are either solitude (with all its miseries and dangers, both moral and physical) or else all the rubs and frustrations of a joint life. The second, even at its worst seems to me far the better.

—C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady.

Real Happiness?

Only the happiness that is snatched from suffering is real; all the rest is merely what they call 'creature comforts'.

—Thornton Wilder, Theophilus North, Mino, quoting Austrian poet Grillparzer?

Hell

Hell is they.

—Thornton Wilder, Theophilus North, Alice.

Hell is oneself.

—T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party.

Constellations

A man should have three masculine friends older than himself, three of about his own age, and three younger. And he should have three older women friends, three of his own age, and three younger. These twice-nine friends I call his Constellation.... Seldom—perhaps never—are all eighteen roles filled at the same time. Vacancies occur; some live for years—or for a lifetime—with only one older or younger friend, or with none.... But we must remember that we also play a part in the Constellations of others—which is a partial replacement in our own.

—Thornton Wilder, Theophilus North, The Deer Park, p 310.

Newspapers

I never read the papers. Why does anyone? They're nearly all lies, and one has to wade thru' such reams of verbiage and 'write up' to find out even what they're saying.

—C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady, 26/10/55.

Discernment

Every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul, to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.

—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol