“Then the Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down."That is the way," he said. "But there are no stairs." "You must throw yourself in. There is no other way.”

“Could you not give me some sign, or tell me something about you that never changes, or some other way to know you, or thing to know you by?" — "No, Curdie: that would be to keep you from knowing me. You must know me in quite another way from that. It would not be the least use to you or me either if I were to make you know me in that way. It would be but to know the sign of me — not to know me myself.”

“You have tasted of death now,” said the old man. “Is it good?” “It is good,” said Mossy. “It is better than life.”“No,” said the old man: “it is only more life.”

“To cease to wonder is to fall plumb-down from the childlike to the commonplace—the most undivine of all moods intellectual. Our nature can never be at home among things that are not wonderful to us.”

“I would I were in the kingdom of heaven if it be as you and Mr. Graham take it for!" said Clementina."You must be in it, my lady, or you couldn't wish it to be such as it is.""Can one be in it and yet seem to himself to be out of it. Malcolm?""So many are out of it that seem to be in it, my lady, that one might well imagine it the other way around with some.”

“Great stems rose about me, uplifting a thick multitudinous roof above me of branches, and twigs, and leaves-- the bird and insect world uplifted over mine, with its own landscapes, its own thickets, and paths, and glades, and dwellings; its own bird-ways and insect-delights. Great boughs crossed my path; great roots based the tree-columns, and mightily clasped the earth, strong to lift and strong to uphold. It seemed an old, old forest, perfect in forest ways and pleasure. And when, in the midst of this ectasy, I remembered that under some close canopy of leaves, by some giant stem, or in some mossy cave, or beside some leafy well, sat the lady of marble, whom my songs had called forth into the outer world, waiting (might it not be?) to meet and thank her deliverer in a twilight which would veil her confusion, the whole night became one dream-realm of joy, the central form of which was everywhere present, although unbeheld. Then, remembering how my songs seemed to have called her form the marble, piercing through the pearly shroud of alabaster -- "Why," thought I, "should not my voice reach her now, through the ebon night that inwraps her." My voice burst into song so spontaneously that it seemed involuntarily:”

“Right gladly would He free them from their misery, but He knows only one way: He will teach them to be like himself, meek and lowly, bearing with gladness the yoke of His Father's will. This in the one, the only right, the only possible way of freeing them from their sin, the cause of their unrest.”