C. S. Lewis Novelist

Gender: Male
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Born: Nov 29, 1898
Died: Nov 22, 1963

Clive Staples Lewis, commonly called C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist. Born in Belfast, Ireland, he held academic positions at both Oxford University, 1925 - 54, and Cambridge University, 1954 - 63. He is best known both for his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.

Lewis and fellow novelist J. R. R. Tolkien were close friends. Both authors served on the English faculty at Oxford University, and both were active in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings". According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptized in the Church of Ireland at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at the age of 32 Lewis returned to the Anglican Communion, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England".

How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete. age & great

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. future & time

Thirty was so strange for me. I've really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult. birthday

I gave in, and admitted that God was God. faith & God

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. courage

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. experience & God

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. God

There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. marriage

Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. time

Eros will have naked bodies Friendship naked personalities. friendship

Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature. nature

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. motivational

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' God

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. good

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. God, happiness & peace

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. religion

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted. love & power

Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and done things. We had time. history, men, time & women

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. religion

Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives. happiness & love

What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument. men, nature & power

Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement. failure

Reason is the natural order of truth but imagination is the organ of meaning. imagination & truth

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

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. education