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C. S. Lewis once wrote that stories have a unique knack of getting under our skin and hitting us at a deeper level than our thoughts. They can strengthen old certainties and open doors we thought were locked. Stories have the power to
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“Milton was right,’ said my Teacher. ‘The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
― The Great Divorce
― The Great Divorce
“Some are, no doubt. The sensualist, I’ll allow ye, begins by pursuing a real pleasure, though a small one. His sin is the less. But the time comes on when, though the pleasure becomes less and less and the craving fiercer and fiercer, and though he knows that joy can never come that way, yet he prefers to joy the mere fondling of unappeasable lust and would not have it taken from him. He’d fight to the death to keep it. He’d like well to be able to scratch: but even when he can scratch no more he’d rather itch than not.”
― The Great Divorce
― The Great Divorce
“They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”
― The Great Divorce
― The Great Divorce
“Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.”
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“Before me green slopes made a wide amphitheatre, enclosing a frothy and pulsating lake into which, over many-coloured rocks, a waterfall was pouring. Here once again I realised that something had happened to my senses so that they were now receiving impressions which would normally exceed their capacity. On earth, such a waterfall could not have been perceived at all as a whole; it was too big. Its sound would have been a terror in the woods for twenty miles. Here, after the first shock, my sensibility ‘took’ both as a well-built ship takes a huge wave. I exulted. The noise, though gigantic, was like giants’ laughter: like the revelry of a whole college of giants together laughing, dancing, singing, roaring at their high works.”
― The Great Divorce
― The Great Divorce
Nathaniel’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Nathaniel’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
90 books
|
10 friends
106 books
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40 friends
46 books
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6 friends
132 books
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190 friends
7 books
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92 friends
493 books
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13 friends
8 books
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15 friends
20 books
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36 friends
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