Quotes by Philip Zaleski

Christian myth, reveals the truth that the Christian was (and is) still like his forefathers a mortal hemmed into a hostile world.

Obedience appears to me more and more the whole business of life, the only road to love and peace.

Fidelity in marriage requires self-will and self-denial.

Shame and suffering, as St. Bernard says, are the two ladder-uprights which are set up to heaven, and between those two uprights are the rungs of all virtues fixed, by which one climbs to the joy of heaven… In these two things, in which is all penance, rejoice and be glad, for in return for these, twofold blisses are prepared: in return for shame honour; in return for suffering, delight and rest without end.

A Christians duty, Lewis believed, is not simply to tolerate X but to make life with X an occasion to work on ones own character flaws.

Its not easy being a missionary, even with the key to the cosmos in your hand.

The teacher-student relationship evaporated, replaced by a rich and lively exchange of equals.

He would henceforth worship and defend the very reason for Joy, the Almighty Maker of Joy.

Lewis spoke for almost every member when he said, There is no sound I like better than adult male laughter.

A philosophy that cannot be lived is no philosophy at all.

She had responded to the loss of her husband, to poverty, to disease, and to family cruelty with boldness and ingenuity, by opening herself to others, especially to her children and her Church, pouring into these precious vessels her knowledge, hope, and devotion.

This is one of the difficulties and pleasures of studying the Inklings; Christians all, they offer, along with the expected 20th-century psychological explanations for behavior, unexpected spiritual ones.

C.S. Lewis had come to demand of his nightly prayers a realization, a certain vividness of the imagination and the affectations – a sure recipe for sleeplessness and misery.

The Inklings were comrades who have been touched by war, who view life through the lens of war, yet who look for hope and found it, in fellowship, where so many other modern writers and intellectuals saw only broken narratives, disfigurement, and despair.

A Christian atmosphere is no protection against preening egos.

He loved his family, his friends, his writing, his painting; he knew their flaws, but they neither surprised nor embittered him.

Charles Williams loved his son with reservations, complaining that a child is a guest of a somewhat inconsistent temperament, rather difficult to get rid of, almost pushing; a poor relation rather than a pleasant kind.

Williams was complex and tortured. He was not a saint but had his saintly side, which came and went, radiant and sincere as long as it lasted.