Charles Williams Quotes

Many promising reconciliations have broken down because while both parties come prepared to forgive, neither party come prepared to be forgiven.

An hour's conversation on literature between two ardent minds with a common devotion to a neglected poet is a miraculous road to intimacy.

It’s said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That’s of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it’s said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.

The beginning of Christendom, is, strictly, at a point out of time. A metphysical trigonometry finds it among the spiritual Secrets, at the meeting of two heavenward lines, one drawn from Bethany along the Ascent of the Messias, the other from Jerusalem against the Descent of the Paraclete. That measurement, the measurement of eternity in operation, of the bright cloud and the rushing wind, is, in effect, theology.

Every contrition for sin is apt to encourage a not quite charitable wish that other people should exhibit a similar contrition.

The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse.

How can one bargain for anything that is worth while? And what else is worth bargaining for?

It may be a movement towards becoming like little children to admit that we are generally nothing else.

Love was even more mathematical than poetry. It was the pure mathematics of the spirit.

Play and pray; but on the whole do not pray when you are playing and do not play when you are praying.