The Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, The Chronicles of Narnia has been adapted for radio, television, the stage, film and video games. The series is set in the fictional realm of Narnia, a fantasy world of magic, mythical beasts and talking animals. It narrates the adventures of various children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the Narnian world. Except in The Horse and His Boy, the protagonists are all children from the real world who are magically transported to Narnia, where they are sometimes called upon by the lion Aslan to protect Narnia from evil. The books span the entire history of Narnia, from its creation in The Magician's Nephew to its eventual destruction in The Last Battle.

Quotes

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)

For the 2005 movie, see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know...

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.
- Dedication, "To Lucy Barfield"

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.
- Opening lines

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
- Ch. 8 : What Happened after Dinner

"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."
- Ch. 8 : What Happened after Dinner

Rise up, Sir Peter Wolf's-Bane. And, whatever happens, never forget to wipe your sword.
- Aslan, after knighting Peter, in Ch. 12 : Peter's First Battle

"But what does it all mean?" asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."
- Ch. 15 : Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time

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.
- Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen.
- Aslan, in Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

“He’ll be coming and going” [...] “One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down — and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion."
- Mr. Beaver, in Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

"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!"
- Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

“And more,” said Queen Lucy, “for it will not go out of my mind that if we pass this post and lantern either we shall find strange adventures or else some great change in our fortunes.”
“Madam,” said King Edmund, “the like foreboding stirreth in my heart also.”
“And in mine, fair brother,” said King Peter.
“And in mine too,” said Queen Susan. “Wherefore by my counsel we shall lightly return to our horses and follow this White Stag no further.”
“Madam,” said King Peter, “therein I pray thee to have me excused. For never since we four were Kings and Queens in Narnia have we set our hands to any high matter, as battles, quests, feats of arms, acts of justice, and the like, and then given over; but always what we have taken in hand, the same we have achieved.”
“Sister,” said Queen Lucy, “my royal brother speaks rightly. And it seems to me we should be shamed if for any fearing or foreboding we turned back from following so noble a beast as now we have in chase.”
“And so say I,” said King Edmund. “And I have such desire to find the signification of this thing that I would not by my own good will turn back for the richest jewel in all Narnia and all the islands.”
“Then in the name of Aslan,” said Queen Susan, “if ye will all have it so, let us go on and take the adventure that shall fall to us.”
- End of Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

What do they teach them at these schools?
- The Professor, in Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

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.
- Closing lines

Prince Caspian (1951)

For the 2008 movie, see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Who believes in Aslan nowadays?
- Trumpkin to Caspian, in Ch. 5. : Caspian's Adventure In The Mountains

"If your Majesty is ever to use the Horn," said Trufflehunter, "I think the time has now come." Caspian had of course told them of his treasure several days ago.
"We are certainly in great need," answered Caspian. "But it is hard to be sure we are at our greatest. Supposing there came an even worse need and we had already used it?"
"By that argument," said Nikabrik, "your Majesty will never use it until it is too late."
"I agree with that," said Doctor Cornelius.
"And what do you think, Trumpkin?" asked Caspian.
"Oh, as for me," said the Red Dwarf, who had been listening with complete indifference, "your Majesty knows I think the Horn—and that bit of broken stone over there and your great King Peter—and your Lion Aslan—are all eggs in moonshine. It's all one to me when your Majesty blows the Horn. All I insist on is that the army is told nothing about it. There's no good raising hopes of magical help which (as I think) are sure to be disappointed."
- Ch. 7 : Old Narnia In Danger

"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."
- Ch. 7 : Old Narnia In Danger

"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."
- Ch. 8 : How They Left The Island

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."
"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."
- Ch. 10: The Return of the Lion

"You have listened to fears, Child," said Aslan. "Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?"
- Aslan to Susan, in Ch. 11 : The Lion Roars

"Sire," said Reepicheep [the chief mouse]. "My life is ever at your command, but my honour is my own. Sire, I have among my people the only trumpeter in your Majesty's army. I had thought, perhaps, we might have been sent with the challenge [to single combat between the High King Peter and King Miraz]. Sire, my people are grieved. Perhaps if it were your pleasure that I should be a marshal of the lists, it would content them."
[...]
"I am afraid it would not do," said Peter very gravely. "Some humans are afraid of mice—"
"I have observed it, Sire," said Reepicheep.
"And it would not be quite fair to Miraz," Peter continued, "to have in sight anything that might abate the edge of his courage."
"Your Majesty is the mirror of honour," said the Mouse with one of his admirable bows.
- Ch. 13 : The High King In Command

"Have you pen and ink, Master Doctor?"
"A scholar is never without them, your Majesty," answered Doctor Cornelius.
- Peter and Cornelius, in Ch. 13 : The High King In Command

"Welcome, Prince," said Aslan. "Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?"
"I — I don't think I do, Sir," said Caspian. "I'm only a kid."
"Good," said Aslan. "If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not."
- Ch. 15 : Aslan Makes A Door In The Air

"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."
- Aslan to Caspian, in Ch. 15 : Aslan Makes A Door In The Air

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)

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.
- Opening lines

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.
- About Eustace, Ch. 1 : The Picture in the Bedroom

"But who is Aslan? Do you know him?"
"Well — he knows me," said Edmund.
- Eustace and Edmund, in Ch. 7 : How the Adventure Ended

The Lord Octesian's arm-ring had a curious fate. Eustace did not want it and offered it to Caspian, and Caspian offered it to Lucy. She did not care about having it. "Very well, then, catch as catch can," said Caspian and flung it up in the air. [...] Up went the ring, flashing in the sunlight, and caught, and hung, as neatly as a well-thrown quoit, on a little projection on the rock. No one could climb up to get it from below and no one could climb down to get it from above. And there, for all I know, it is hanging still and may hang till the world ends.
- Ch. 7 : How the Adventure Ended

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.
- Ch. 8 : Two Narrow Escapes

I don't know what the Bearded Glass was for because I am not a magician.
- Narrator, in Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

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!
- Of Lucy, in Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

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.
- Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

"I will say the spell," said Lucy. "I don't care. I will." She said I don't care because she had a strong feeling that she mustn't.
But when she looked back at the opening words of the spell, there in the middle of the writing, where she felt quite sure there had been no picture before, she found the great face of a lion, of The Lion, Aslan himself, staring into hers. It was painted such a bright gold that it seemed to be coming towards her out of the page; and indeed she never was quite sure afterwards that it hadn't really moved a little. At any rate, she knew the expression on his face quite well. He was growling and you could see most of his teeth. She became horribly afraid and turned over the page at once.
- Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

And all in a hurry, for fear her mind would change, she said the words [for a different spell] (nothing will induce me to tell you what they were). Then she waited for something to happen.
As nothing happened she began looking at the pictures. And all at once she saw the very last thing she expected — a picture of a third-class carriage in a train, with two schoolgirls sitting in it. ... Only now it was much more than a picture. It was alive. She could see the telegraph posts flicking past outside the window.
- Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

When she had got to the third page [of another story] and come to the end, she said, "That is the loveliest story I've ever read or ever shall read in my whole life. Oh, I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years. At least I'll read it over again."
But here part of the magic of the Book came into play. You couldn't turn back. The right-hand pages, the ones ahead, could be turned; the left-hand pages could not.
... "It was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill, I know that much. But I can't remember, and what shall I do?"
- Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

"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?"
- Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

"Do you grow weary, Coriakin, of ruling such foolish subjects as I have given you here?" [Aslan asked.]
"No," said the Magician, "they are very stupid but there is no real harm in them. I begin to grow rather fond of the creatures. Sometimes, perhaps, I am a little impatient, waiting for the day when they can be governed by wisdom instead of this rough magic."
"All in good time, Coriakin," said Aslan.
"Yes, all in very good time, Sir," was the answer.
- Ch. 11 : The Dufflepuds Made Happy

"Please, Aslan," said Lucy, "what do you call soon?"
"I call all times soon," said Aslan.
[...]
"Come," said the Magician. "All times may be soon to Aslan, but in my home all hungry times are one o'clock."
- Ch. 11 : The Dufflepuds Made Happy

"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."
- Ch. 11 : The Dufflepuds Made Happy

"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."
- Ch. 11 : The Dufflepuds Made Happy

"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."
- Ch. 12 : The Dark Island

"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.
- Caspian and Reepicheep, in Ch. 12 : The Dark Island

"Courage, dear heart"
- Whispered to Lucy by Aslan on the Dark Island, in Ch. 12 : The Dark Island

"I am a star at rest, my daughter," answered Ramandu. "When I set for the last time, decrepit and old beyond all that you can reckon, I was carried to this island. I am not so old now as I was then. Every morning a bird brings me a fire-berry from the valleys of the Sun, and each fire-berry takes away a little of my age. And when I have become as young as a child that was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising once again (for we are at earth's eastern rim) and once more tread the great dance."
"In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."
"Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of."
- Ch. 14 : The Beginning of the End of the World

"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"
- Reepicheep, in Ch. 14 : The Beginning of the End of the World

"Oh, Aslan," said Lucy. "Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?"
"I shall be telling you all the time," said Aslan. "But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder."
- Ch. 16 : The Very End of the World

"Please Aslan, before we go, will you tell us when we can come back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do, make it soon."
"Dearest," said Aslan very gently, "you and your brother will never come back to Narnia."
"Oh, Aslan!!" said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.
"You are too old, children," said Aslan, "and you must begin to come close to your own world now."
"It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.
"Are — are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."
- Ch. 16 : The Very End of the World

The Silver Chair (1953)

"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.
"I am dying of thirst," said Jill.
"Then drink," said the Lion.
"May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
"Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.
"I make no promise," said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?" she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream," said the Lion.
- Ch. 2 : Jill Is Given a Task

"You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you," said the Lion.
- Ch. 2 : Jill Is Given a Task

"Puddleglum's my name. But it doesn't matter if you forget it. I can always tell you again."
- Ch. 5 : Puddleglum

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.
- Ch. 8 : The House of Harfang

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."
- Puddleglum, in Ch. 12 : The Queen of Underland

It is the stupidest children who are most childish and the stupidest grown-ups who are most grown-up.
- Ch. 16 : The Healing of Harms

The Horse and His Boy (1954)

"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."
- Ch. 6 : Shasta Among the Tombs

"My good Horse," said the Hermit ... "My good Horse, you've lost nothing but your self-conceit. No, no, cousin. Don't put back your ears and shake your mane at me. If you are really so humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must learn to listen to sense. You're not quite the great Horse you had come to think, from living among poor dumb horses. Of course you were braver and cleverer than them. You could hardly help being that. It doesn't follow that you'll be anyone very special in Narnia. But as long as you know you're nobody special, you'll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another."
- Ch. 10 : The Hermit of the Southern March

"I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."
"Then it was you who wounded Aravis?"
"It was I."
"But what for?"
"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own."
- Aslan and Shasta, in Ch. 11 : The Unwelcome Fellow Traveller

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.
- Ch. 11 : The Unwelcome Fellow Traveller

"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 suppose Aslan would say that was part of someone else's story," said Aravis.
"I was forgetting that," said Cor.
- Shasta and Aravis, in Ch. 14 : How Bree Became a Wiser Horse

Then Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh, and trotted across to the Lion.
"Please," she said, "you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."
"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."
- Ch. 14 : How Bree Became a Wiser Horse

"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."
- Ch. 15 : Rabadash the Ridiculous

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.
- Ch. 15 : Rabadash the Ridiculous

The Magician's Nephew (1955)

In those days Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road.
- Ch. 1 : The Wrong Door

Digory was quite speechless, for Uncle Andrew looked a thousand times more alarming than he had ever looked before. Polly was not so frightened yet; but she soon was. For the very first thing Uncle Andrew did was to walk across to the door of the room, shut it, and turn the key in the lock. Then he turned round, fixed the children with his bright eyes, and smiled, showing all his teeth.
"There!" he said. "Now my fool of a sister can't get at you!"
It was dreadfully unlike anything a grown-up would be expected to do.
- Ch. 1 : The Wrong Door

"Rotten?" said Uncle Andrew with a puzzled look. "Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true: most right and proper, I'm sure, and I'm very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys -- and servants -- and women -- and even people in general, can't possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny."
As he said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and mysterious that for a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But then he remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle's face the moment before Polly had vanished: and all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew's grand words. "All it means," he thought to himself, "is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to get anything he wants."
- Ch. 2 : Digory and His Uncle

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.
- Poem on the bell in the great hall, Ch. 4 : The Bell and the Hammer

Aunt Letty was a very tough old lady: aunts often were in those days.
- Ch. 7 : What Happened at the Front Door

In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.
- Ch. 8 : The Fight at the Lamp-post

"Creatures, I give you yourselves," said the strong, happy voice of Aslan. "I give to you forever this land of Narnia. I give you the woods, the fruits, the rivers. I give you the stars and I give you myself. The Dumb Beasts whom I have not chosen are yours also. Treat them gently and cherish them but do not go back to their ways lest you cease to be Talking Beasts. For out of them you were taken and into them you can return. Do not so."
- Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other Matters

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.
- Aslan, in Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other Matters

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?
- The talking animals, in Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other Matters

"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?"
- Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other Matters

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.
- Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other Matters

"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."
- Ch. 13 : An Unexpected Meeting

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.
- Ch. 13 : An Unexpected Meeting

"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."
- Aslan, in Ch. 14 : The Planting of the Tree

All get what they want; they do not always like it.
- Aslan, in Ch. 14 : The Planting of the Tree

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.
- Ch. 15 : The End of This Story and the Beginning of All Others

The Last Battle (1956)

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.
- Ch. 7 : Mainly About Dwarfs

"So," said the King, after a long silence, "Narnia is no more."
- Ch. 8 : What News the Eagle Brought

Nothing now remains for us seven but to go back to Stable Hill, proclaim the truth, and take the adventure that Aslan sends us.
- Jewel the Unicorn, upon hearing of the taking of Cair Paravel by the Calormenes, in Ch. 9 : The Great Meeting on Stable Hill

"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!"
- Jill and Eustace in Ch. 9 : The Great Meeting on Stable Hill

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."
- Ch. 13 : How the Dwarfs Refused to Be Taken In

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.
- Ch. 13 : How the Dwarfs Refused to Be Taken In

"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?"
- Ch. 14 : Night Falls on Narnia

"Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of Thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."
[Emeth said,] "And this is the marvel of marvels, that he [Aslan] called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog — "
"Eh? What's that?" said one of the Dogs.
[...]
"He doesn't mean any harm," said an older Dog. "After all, we call our puppies Boys when they don't behave properly."
"So we do," said the first Dog. "Or girls."
"S-s-sh!" said the Old Dog. "That's not a nice word to use. Remember where you are."
- Ch. 15 : Further Up and Further In

Every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like it meant more.

Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among the mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the glass there may have been a looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like it meant more. I can't describe it any better than that: if you ever get there you will know what I mean.
It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried:
"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia so much is because it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!"
- Ch. 15 : Further Up and Further In

"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."
- Ch. 16 : Farewell to Shadowlands

"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all stories, and we can most truly say they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
- Closing lines, in Ch. 16 : Farewell to Shadowlands

Quotes about The Chronicles of Narnia

Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about child psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out 'allegories' to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn't write in that way. It all began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord.
- Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966)

I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.
- Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966)

External links

Encyclopedic article on The Chronicles of Narnia on Wikipedia
Encyclopedic article on C. S. Lewis on Wikipedia
The Chronicles of Narnia on Bibliowiki (public domain in Canada)
The Chronicles of Narnia wiki

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	Novel (1950)	· Television serial (1967)	· Film (1979)	· Television serial (1988)	· Film (2005)
Prince Caspian	Novel (1951)	·		· Television serial (1989)	· Film (2008)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader	Novel (1952)	·		· Television serial (1989)	· Film (2010)
The Silver Chair	Novel (1953)	·		· Television serial (1990)	·
The Horse and His Boy	Novel (1954)	·
The Magician's Nephew	Novel (1955)	·
The Last Battle	Novel (1956)	·
See also	Novel series (1950–1956) · BBC serials (1988–1990) · Silverchair (band named after The Silver Chair) · Film series (2005–present) · Last words in the film series