Quote of the week: C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

“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 of eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, as in love, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.”

~C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

Quote of the Week: C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

   ‘I don’t know about all, Sir,’ said I. ‘Am I right in thinking the Lizard really turned into the Horse?’

   ‘Aye. But it was killed first. Ye’ll not forget that part of the story?’

   ‘I’ll try not to, Sir. But does it mean that everything—everything—that is in us can go on to the Mountains?’

   ‘Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountains. Not because they are too rank, but because they are too weak. What is a lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.’

Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). The Great Divorce (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis) (p. 114). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Quote of the Week: Makoto Fujimura

Deeply engaged reading leads to perceptual awakening, stimulation of the core of the intuitive and experiential...What reading and writing can teach us is a deeper empathy that leads us to desire the best for others who are entirely different from us, and to long to communicate with them.

-Makoto Fujimura, Refractions #26: The Epistle of Van Gogh