“For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.”

“Then it was you who wounded Aravis?" "It was I." "But what for?" "Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”

“Child,' said the Lion, 'I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.”

“I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story.”

“And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician's Book.”

“It is my opinion that a story worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.”

“I wrote fairy tales because the Fairy Tale seemed the ideal Form for the stuff I had to say.Then of course the Man in me began to have his turn. I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. As obligation to feel can freeze feelings. (from the essay Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s To Be Said)”