C. S. Lewis Quotes About Reading

• I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.

  C. S. Lewis

  Book, Reading, Men

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Collected Letters Volume Two: Books, Broadcasts and War, 1931–1949”, p.77, HarperCollins UK

• Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia, Book 2)”, p.7, HarperCollins UK

• It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Book, Reading

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.103, Simon and Schuster

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

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Children, Powerful

• A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.

  C. S. Lewis

  Atheist, Reading, Men

  C. S. Lewis (1966). “Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Plato, Lying

• Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.

  C. S. Lewis

  Reading, Two, Eating

  C. S. Lewis (1966). “Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life”, p.152, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• We read to know we are not alone.

  C. S. Lewis

  Reading, Lovely, Knows
• 

  You can't get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.

  C. S. Lewis

  Book, Reading, Long

  "On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature".

• As long as you notice, and have to count the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don't notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not conciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

  C. S. Lewis

  Reading, Eye, Thinking

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.80, Simon and Schuster

• When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

  C. S. Lewis

  Fear, Children, Growing Up

  C. S. Lewis (2002). “On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• In Science we have been reading only the notes to a poem; in Christianity we find the poem itself.

  C. S. Lewis

  Reading, Miracle, Christianity

  C. S. Lewis (1996). “Miracles: A Preliminary Study”, Touchstone Books

• 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.

  C. S. Lewis

  Book, Reading, Age

• I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis.

  C. S. Lewis

  Girl, Book, Reading

  C. S. Lewis (2013). “The Chronicles of Narnia Complete 7-Book Collection with Bonus Book: Boxen”, p.106, Harper Collins

• The first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things -- praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts -- not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.

  C. S. Lewis

  Children, Teaching, Taken

  C. S. Lewis (1987). “Present Concerns”, p.73, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Growing maturity is marked by the increasing liberties we take with our travelling... we made the discovery (some people never make it) that real books can be taken on a journey and that hours of golden reading can so be added to its other delights.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Book, Taken

• If you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Religious, Prayer

  C.S. Lewis (1960). “Mere Christianity”

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

  C. S. Lewis

  Children, Book, Reading

  C. S. Lewis (2002). “On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature”, p.58, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Read and Re-Read--"Re-reading, we always find a new book.

  C. S. Lewis

  Book, Reading, New Books

• But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

  C. S. Lewis

  Reading, Eye, Night

  C. S. Lewis (2012). “An Experiment in Criticism”, p.141, Cambridge University Press

• The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.

  C. S. Lewis

  Book, Reading, Sea Breeze

• It certainly is my opinion that a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.

  C. S. Lewis

  Reading, Childhood, Stories

  "On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature".

• Looking for God-or Heaven-by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters.

  C. S. Lewis

  Faith, Reading, Character

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.73, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• ...the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him..." - C.S. Lewis: Weight of Glory

  C. S. Lewis

  Book, Reading, Beer

• Ideally, we should like to define a good book as one which 'permits, invites, or compels' good reading

  C. S. Lewis

  Book, Reading, Permit

  C. S. Lewis (2012). “An Experiment in Criticism”, p.113, Cambridge University Press

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