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Description edit
C. S. Lewis takes us on a profound journey through both heaven and hell in this engaging allegorical tale. Using his extraordinary descriptive powers, Lewis introduces us to supernatural beings who will change the way we think about good and evil.
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Narrator: Unnamed, presumably Lewis.
- George MacDonald: Admired by the narrator.
- Michael: Add a description of this character.
- Robert
- Dick
- Pam
- Hilda
- Sara Smith: A loving nobody on earth, a loving Somebody in Heaven.
- Napoleon
- Jack
- Frank
- Lizard
Quotes edit
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“If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.”
From the Introduction by C. S. Lewis -
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."”
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“"In our grammar God is a noun."”
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“I will tell you one thing to begin with. Murdering old Jack wasn't the worst thing I did. That was the work of a moment and I was half mad when I did it. But I murdered you in my heart deliberately, for years. I used to lie awake at nights thinking what I'd do to you if I ever got the chance. That is why I have been sent to you now: to ask your forgiveness and to be your servant as long as you need one, and longer if it pleases you.”
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“It's up to the Management to find something that doesn't bore us, isn't it? It's their job. Why should we do it for them? That's just where all the parsons and moralists have got the thing upside down. They keep on asking us to alter ourselves. But if the people who run the show are so clever and so powerful, why don't they find something to suit their public?”
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“At College, you know, we just started automatically writing the kind of essays that got good marks and saying the kind of things that won applause. When, in our whole lives, did we honestly face, in solitude, the one question on which all turned: whether after all the Supernatural might not in fact occur? When did we put up one moment's real resistance to the loss of our faith?”
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“I can promise you none of these things. No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.”
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“Milton was right. The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words 'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.' There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy—that is, to reality.”
George MacDonald -
“There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself ... as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. Man! Ye see it in smaller matters. Did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organizer of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all the snares.”
George MacDonald -
“Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.”
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There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.’
Highlighted by 558 Kindle customers -
There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.
Highlighted by 461 Kindle customers -
There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself…as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ.
Highlighted by 432 Kindle customers -
‘The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.’
Highlighted by 367 Kindle customers -
Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.’
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I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.
Highlighted by 322 Kindle customers -
Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it already.’
Highlighted by 304 Kindle customers -
Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn’t stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower—become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations.’
Highlighted by 248 Kindle customers
First Sentence edit
I seemed to be standing in a busy queue by the side of a long, mean street.
Themes & Symbolism edit
Authors & Contributors edit
- C. S. Lewis (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Geoffrey Bles
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 1945
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 118
Publisher: Geoffrey Bles
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 1945
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 118
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 236.2
Subjects edit
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