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Nothing which is at all times and in every way agreeable to us can have objective reality. It is of the very nature of the real that it should have sh...more

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Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us.

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When the voice of your friend or the page of your book sinks into democratic equality with the pattern of the wallpaper, the feel of your clothes, you...more

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You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes yo...more

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What may be myth in one world may always be fact in some other.

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Our experience is coloured through and through by books and plays and the cinema, and it takes patience and skill to disentangle the things we have re...more

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It must be a really great book because one can read it as a boy in one way, and then re-read it in middle life and get something very different out of...more

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We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading.

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No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.

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Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I ...more

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Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality.

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You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.

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A clever schoolboy's reaction to his reading is most naturally expressed by parody or imitation.

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A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.

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The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.