Philip Zaleski

“As the honors accrued, creativity diminished.”

“Oxford in the Inklings' day was not so different in look and smell from the Oxford of today. Then, as now, one was tempted to fantasize one's surroundings as a Camelot of intellectual knight-errantry or an Eden of serene contemplation. Then, as now, there was bound to be disappointment.”

“The unavoidable harshness of life surprised none of them, for they were Christians one and all, believing that they inhabited a fallen world, albeit one filled with God's grace.”

“Lewis was studying literary history with the present and future in mind.”

“Passion does not translate easily into good income.”

“Imagination pointed toward truth but could not disclose it directly.”

“In the infancy of society every author is necessarily a poet, because language itself is poetry. – Owen Barfield”

“He trusted the cosmos – but not necessarily the powers that held sway on earth.”

“Words contain the "souls" or minds of people in the past; as such, they tell the story of consciousness.”

“We must picture Oxford, during World War I, not as the neomedieval paradise it would like to be, but as the military compound it was obliged to become.”

“The arts are the best Time Machine we have." C. S. Lewis”