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“But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars.” Lee’s eyes shone. “You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“The ways of sin are curious . . . I guess if a man had to shuck off everything he had, inside and out, he'd manage to hide a few little sins somewhere for his own discomfort. They're the last things we'll give up.”
― East of Eden
― East of Eden
“It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
― The Screwtape Letters
― The Screwtape Letters
“…greatness flows from the creativity and overcoming that chaos and challenge inspires in the man whose Noble belief in his own worth drives him forward to demonstrate his potential and realize the miracle of his own godhood. If you cannot see the way, make the way. If you despise the world around you, do not lament the passing of a dream you never knew — dream the world that you want NOW. Begin from where you are. Dream a new world and impose it from above. Thrust your hands into the decaying soil, scoop it up and sculpt it — give it shape with all of your strength. Life was never fair and creation was never easy. Take the world you have and make the one you want. Be the god that gives it life. And if you don’t know where to start — if you have nothing but your own body — start there. Create and recreate yourself. Be the clay, and become your own dream. Not because you have to, or because it is needed or necessary, but because you want to. Why not? Isn’t that what the conqueror, the master and the first king says? “Why not me?” Why not be the creature who creates himself?”
― A More Complete Beast
― A More Complete Beast
“Whatever men expect, they soon come to think they have a right to: the sense of disappointment can, with very little skill on our part, be turned into a sense of injury....To produce the best results from the patients fatigue, therefore, you must feed him with false hopes. Put into his mind plausible reasons for believing that the air-raid will not be repeated. Keep him comforting himself with the thought of how much he will enjoy his bed next night. Exaggurate the weariness by making him think it will soon be over; for men usually feel that strain could have been endured no longer than at the very moment it was ending, or when they think it is ending. In this, as in the problem of cowardice, the thing to avoid is the total commitment. Whatever he says, let his inner resolution be not to bear whatever comes to him, but to bear it "for a reasonable period" - and let the reasonable period be shorter than the trial is likely to last. It need not be much shorter; in attacks on patience, chastity, and fortitude, the fun is to make the man yield when (had he but known it) relief was almost in sight.”
― The Screwtape Letters
― The Screwtape Letters
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