The whole distinction between things accidental and things designed, like the distinction between fact and myth, was purely terrestrial. The pattern is so large that within the little frame of earthly experience there appear pieces of it between which we can see no connection, and other pieces between which we can. Hence we rightly, for our use, distinguish the accidental from the essential. But step outside that frame and the distinction drops down into the void, fluttering useless wings.

- C.S. Lewis Perelandra

You cannot see things until you know roughly what they are.

C.S. Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet

To every man, in his acquaintance with a new art, there comes a moment when that which before was meaningless first lifts, as it were, one corner of the curtain that hides its mystery, and reveals, in a burst of delight which later and fuller understanding can hardly equal, one glimpse of the indefinite possibilities within.

C.S. Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet

I know things in the inner world which are like babies; the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments, which may one day become dipsomania or settled hatred, but which woo us and wheedle us with special pleadings and seem so tiny, so helpless that in resisting them we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whimpering to us “I don’t ask much, but,” or “I had at least hoped,” or “you owe yourself some consideration.” Against all such pretty infants (the dears have such winning ways) the advice of the Psalm [137] is the best. Knock the little bastards’ brains out. And “blessed” is he who can, for it’s easier said than done.

C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

as quoted in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Psalms, and Writings, eds. Longman and Enns.