Nathan Storms

“...startled into self-forgetfulness, I again tasted Joy.”
― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

“I smuggled in the assumption that what I wanted was a 'thrill', a state of my own mind. And there lies the deadly error. Only when your whole attention and desire are fixed on something else – whether a distant mountain, or the past, or the gods of Asgard – does the 'thrill' arise. It is a by-product. Its very existence presupposes that you desire not it but something other and outer.”
― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

“There is a sense in which Arthur and Barfield are the types of every man's First Friend and Second Friend. The First is the alter ego, the man who first reveals to you that you are not alone in the world by turning out (beyond hope) to share all your most secret delights. There is nothing to be overcome in making him your friend; he and you join like rain-drops on a window. But the Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything. He is not so much the alter ego as the anti-self. Of course he shares your interests; otherwise he would not become your friend at all. But he has approached them all at a different angle.”
― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

“Such is my ideal... It is no doubt for my own good that I have been so generally prevented from leading it, for it is a life almost entirely selfish. Selfish, not self-centered: for in such a life my mind would be directed towards a thousand things, not one of which is myself. The distinction is not unimportant. One of the happiest men and most pleasing companions I have ever known was intensely selfish. On the other hand I have known people capable of real sacrifice whose lives were nevertheless a misery to themselves and to others, because self-concern and self-pity filled all their thoughts. Either condition will destroy the soul in the end. But till the end, give me the man who takes the best of everything (even at my expense) and then talks of others things, rather than the man who serves me and talks of himself, and whose very kindnesses are a continual reproach, a continual demand for pity, gratitude, and admiration.”
― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life