Charles Williams Quotes

Of Adam and Eve: They had what they wanted. That they did not like it when they got it does not alter the fact that they certainly got it. ~ Charles Williams

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

And jewels and words are no less and no more necessary than cotton and silence. ~ Charles Williams

We are," he thought to himself, "becoming anthropomorphic a little rapidly. We shall be asking the Stone what it would like for breakfast next." . . . Now that we know we create gods, do not let us hesitate in the work." He blinked inwardly at the phrase and proceeded. "But I have promised to believe in God, and here is a temptation to infidelity already, since I know that any god in whom I can believe will be consonant with my mind. So if I believe it must be in a god consonant with me. This would seem to limit God vary considerably. ~ Charles Williams

I hope you still think that ideas are more dangerous than material thing," Quentin said. "That is what you were arguing at lunch."
Anthony pondered while glancing from side to side before he answered, "Yes, I do. All material danger is limited, whereas interior danger is unlimited. It's more dangerous for you to hate than kill, isn't it? ~ Charles Williams

There is no possible idea," Kenneth thought as he came onto the terrace, "to which the mind of man can't supply some damned alternative or other. Yet one must act. ~ Charles Williams

Over the white curve he had looked into incredible space; abysses of intelligence lay beyond it. ~ Charles Williams

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

Would you rather be more abominable than you sound or sound more abominable than you are? The answer is I would rather be neither but I am both. ~ Charles Williams

A certain brother said : "It is right for a man to take up the burden for them who are near to him, whatever it may be, and, so to speak, to put his own soul in the place of that of his neighbour, and to become, if it were possible, a double man, and he must suffer, and weep, and mourn with him, and finally the matter must be accounted by him as if he himself had put on the actual body of his neighbour, and as if he had acquired his countenance and soul, and he must suffer for him as he would for himself. ~ Charles Williams

Sir Joshua Reynolds, said Jonathan, once alluded to 'common observation and a plain understanding' as the source of all art. ~ Charles Williams

There is, it seems, a law in things that if a man is compelled to choose between two good actions, mutually exclusive, the one which he chooses to neglect will in course of time avenge itself on him. Rightly considered, this is a comfortable if chastening thought, for it implies that the nature of good is such that it can never, not even for some other mode of itself, be neglected. If ever it is, for whatever admirable reasons, set on one side it will certainly return. ~ Charles Williams

Rejection was to be rejection but not denial, as reception was to be reception but not subservience. Both methods, the Affirmative Way and the Negative Way, were to co-exist; one might almost say, to co-inhere, since each was to be the key of the other: in intellect as in emotion, in morals as in doctrine. ~ Charles Williams

Nothing was certain, but everything was safe - that was part of the mystery of Love. ~ Charles Williams

Unless devotion is given to the thing which must prove false in the end, the thing that is true in the end cannot enter. ~ Charles Williams

But there is one thing only at which I have wondered at times, and yet it seemed foolish to think of it. It will happen sometimes when one has worked hard and done all that one can for the purpose before one-it is happened then that I have stood up and been content with the world of things and with what has been done there through me. And this may be pride, or it may be the full stress of the whole being and delight in labour-there are 100 explanations. That I have wondered whether that profound repose was not communicated from some far source and whether the life that is in it was altogether governed by time. And I'm sure that state never comes while I am concerned with myself, and I have thought today that in some strange way that state was itself the Stone. But if so then assuredly none of these men shall find it secret."
"Is that the end of desire?" Chloe said. ~ Charles Williams

When a man falls in love, he sees the beloved in an idealized vision which to the rest of the world seems unjustified by the facts of the woman's character and appearance. The lover feels towards his beloved, thus idealized, a rapture of devotion, which seems to blend humility with exultation, self-giving with grateful receiving, in a joyful interchange of laughter and courtesy. What is the real significance of this vision and the mutual relationship which can emerge from it? [Charles] Williams tells us that the lover sees his beloved as all men would see one another, and all things, had not man fallen from his state of original innocence. He sees his beloved as all men ought to see their fellow-men 'in God'. The relationship between lover and beloved which emerges is (at its best) the relationship of joyful giving and receiving which ought to join all men together. Already such relationships exist among the perfected in Heaven. And the archetype of such perfected relationships is the coherence of the Three Persons of the Trinity. ~ Harry Blamires

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

There was presented to him at once and clearly an opportunity for joy--casual, accidental joy, but joy. If he could not manage joy, at least he might have managed the intention of joy, or (if that also were too much) an effort towards the intention of joy. The infinity of-grace could have been contented and invoked by a mere mental refusal of anything but such an effort. He knew his duty--he was no fool--he knew that the fantastic recognition would please and amuse the innocent soul of Sir Aston, not so much for himself as in some unselfish way for the honour of history. Such honours meant nothing, but they were part of the absurd dance of the world, and to be enjoyed as such. Wentworth knew he could share that pleasure. He could enjoy; at least he could refuse not to enjoy. He could refuse and reject damnation.

With a perfectly clear, if instantaneous, knowledge of what he did, he rejected joy instead. He instantaneously preferred anger, and at once it came; he invoked envy, and it obliged him. He crushed the paper in a rage, then he tore it open, and looked again and again-there it still was. He knew that his rival had not only succeeded, but succeeded at his own expense; what chance was there of another historical knighthood for years? Till that moment he had never thought of such a thing. The possibility had been created and withdrawn simultaneously, leaving the present fact to mock him. The other possibility--of joy in that present fact--receded as fast. He ha ~ Charles Williams

There was no way to kiss her like a good boy. You could start out that way, but you always ended up on the other side of the tracks. If you hated her, it didn't make any difference; it worked just the same. ~ Charles Williams

The strong hands of God twisted the crown of thorns into a crown of glory; and in such hands we are safe. ~ Charles Williams

A man cannot love himself; he can only idolize it, and over the idol delightfully tyrannize - without purpose. The great gift which the simple idolatry of self gives is lack of further purpose ~ Charles Williams

The image of a wood has appeared often enough in English verse. It has indeed appeared so often that it has gathered a good deal of verse into itself; so that it has become a great forest where, with long leagues of changing green between them, strange episodes of poetry have taken place. Thus in one part there are lovers of a midsummer night, or by day a duke and his followers, and in another men behind branches so that the wood seems moving, and in another a girl separated from her two lordly young brothers, and in another a poet listening to a nightingale but rather dreaming richly of the grand art than there exploring it, and there are other inhabitants, belonging even more closely to the wood, dryads, fairies, an enchanter's rout. The forest itself has different names in different tongues- Westermain, Arden, Birnam, Broceliande; and in places there are separate trees named, such as that on the outskirts against which a young Northern poet saw a spectral wanderer leaning, or, in the unexplored centre of which only rumours reach even poetry, Igdrasil of one myth, or the Trees of Knowledge and Life of another. So that indeed the whole earth seems to become this one enormous forest, and our longest and most stable civilizations are only clearings in the midst of it. ~ Charles Williams

I don't actually breakdance. ~ James Webb

She sat the sister of Arthur, the wife of Lot
four sons got by him, and one not. ~ Charles Williams

Her mouth was soft and moist, and she came to me like a dachshund jumping into your lap. ~ Charles Williams

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. ~ Charles Williams

The famous saying 'God is love', it is generally assumed, means that God is like our immediate emotional indulgence, not that the meaning of love ought to have something of the 'otherness' and terror of God. ~ Charles Williams

Let us have all the delights of which we are capable. ~ Charles Williams

Why was this bloody world created?"
"As a sewer for the stars," a voice in front of him said. "Alternatively to know God and to glorify Him forever."
" [ ... ] The two answers are not, of course, necessarily alternative. ~ Charles Williams

It'll do you all the good in the world, Giles, to be a little uncertain of yourself". ~ Charles Williams

I think in order to move forward into the future, you need to know where you've been. ~ Charles Williams

Behind these practical studies lay powerful, intertwined, and potentially contradictory beliefs: that language provides a key to the rational, scientific understanding of the world and that language is more than human speech, that it claims a divine origin and is the means by which God created the cosmos and Adam named the beasts.

As we will see, both ideas strongly influenced the Inklings, whose leading members wrote many words about the meaning of words. For Owen Barfield, language is the fossil record of the history and evolution of human consciousness; for C. S. Lewis, it is a mundane tool that "exists to communicate whatever it can communicate" but also, as in That Hideous Strength, an essential part of our metaphysical makeup for good or ill; for Charles Williams, language is power, a field of force for the magician, a vehicle of prayer for the believing Christian; for Tolkien, language is a fallen human instrument and a precious divine gift ("O felix peccatum Babel!" he exclaimed in his essay "English and Welsh"), a supreme art, and, as "Word", a name for God. ~ Philip Zaleski

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

First," I said, "I'm sorry about the other day. I must have had the book open at the wrong place."
The violet eyes glanced up at me, and then became confused and looked away. "It's all right," she said.
"Then you're not mad at me?"
She shook her head. "Not any more."
"That's fine," I said. "Now we can start even again. Next time I'll read the instructions on the bottle. ~ Charles Williams

Why isn't one taught how to be loved? Why isn't one taught anything? ~ Charles Williams

"Nought usually comes at the beginning," Ralph said. "Not necessarily," said Sibyl. "It might come anywhere. Nought isn't a number at all. It's the opposite of number." Nancy looked up from the cards. "Got you, aunt," she said. "What about ten? Nought's a number there - it's part of ten." "Well, if you say that any mathematical arrangement of one and nought really makes ten - " Sibyl smiled. "Can it possibly be more than a way of representing ten?" ~ Charles Williams

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

They're beautiful hands," he said; "though they've ruined the world, they're beautiful hands. ~ Charles Williams

Hell is indefinite. ~ Charles Williams

Harry," she said, her voice a little thick with the whisky. "You found the way, didn't you?" What's so wonderful about it? I thought. Dogs do. ~ Charles Williams

The girl was in fact so patient with the old lady that she had not yet noticed that she was never given an opportunity to be patient. She endured her own nature and supposed it to be the burden of another's. ~ Charles Williams

[ ... ] the war between good and evil existed no longer, for the thing beneath the Graal was not fighting but vomiting. ~ Charles Williams

What's the matter with you, Madox? You got a grudge against the world? ~ Charles Williams

But Lord Arglay, at once in contact and detached, at once faithless and believing, beheld all these things in the light of that fastidious and ironical goodwill which, outside mystical experience, is the finest and noblest capacity man has developed in and against the universe. ~ Charles Williams

It is easier often to forgive than to be forgiven; yet it is fatal to be willing to be forgiven by God and to be reluctant to be forgiven by men. ~ Charles Williams

I got both hands on her throat and there was nothing inside me but the black madness of that desire to kill her, to close my hands until she turned purple and lay still and there'd be an end to her forever. Let them send me to the chair. Let 'em burn me. All they could do was kill me. ~ Charles Williams

To forgive and to be forgiven are the two points of holy magnificence and holy modesty; round these two centres the whole doctrine of largesse revolves. ~ Charles Williams

but he did not change his purpose, nor did the universe invite him to change. It accepted the choice; no more preventing him than it prevents a child playing with fire or a fool destroying his love. It has not our kindness or our decency; if it is good, its goodness is of another kind than ours. ~ Charles Williams

. Nature's so terribly good. Don't you think so, Mr. Stanhope?"
Stanhope was standing by, silent, while Mrs. Parry communed with her soul and with one or two of her neighbours on the possibilities of dressing the Chorus. He turned his head and answered, "That Nature is terribly good? Yes, Miss Fox. You do mean 'terribly'?"
"Why, certainly," Miss Fox said. "Terribly--dreadfully--very."
"Yes," Stanhope said again. "Very. Only--you must forgive me; it comes from doing so much writing, but when I say 'terribly' I think I mean 'full of terror'. A dreadful goodness."
"I don't see how goodness can be dreadful," Miss Fox said, with a shade of resentment in her voice. "If things are good they're not terrifying, are they?"
"It was you who said 'terribly'," Stanhope reminded her with a smile, "I only agreed."
"And if things are terrifying," Pauline put in, her eyes half closed and her head turned away as if she asked a casual question rather of the world than of him, "can they be good?"
He looked down on her. "Yes, surely," he said, with more energy. "Are our tremors to measure the Omnipotence? ~ Charles Williams

If the redeemed sing, presumably someone must write the songs. ~ Charles Williams

The Divine Thing that made itself the foundation of the Church does not seem, to judge by his comments on the religious leadership of his day, to have hoped much from officers of a church. ~ Charles Williams

The most he would do was to promise that the gates of hell should not prevail against it. It is about all that, looking back on the history of the Church, one can feel that they have not done. ~ Charles Williams

And that was when it really came home to me what I was about to do. I was going to rob a bank, committing the additional crime of arson in the process, and if I got caught I'd go to prison.
Well, I thought, go on selling second-hand jalopies for another forty years and maybe somebody'll give you a testimonial and a forty-dollar watch. ~ Charles Williams

You can take care of everything except chance. Chance can kill you. ~ Charles Williams

I believe Williams was the only one of us, except perhaps Ronald Tolkien, from whom Lewis learnt any of his thinking. It was Charles Williams who expounded to him the doctrine of co-inherence and the idea that one had power to accept into one's own body the pain of someone else, through Christian love. This was a power...he had been allowed to use to ease the suffering of his wife, a cancer victim ~ Jocelyn Gibb

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

But no verse, not Stanhope's, not Shakespeare's, not Dante's could rival the original, and this was the original, and the verse was but the best translation of a certain manner of its life. The glory of poetry could not outshine the clear glory of the certain fact, and not any poetry could hold as many meanings as the fact. ~ Charles Williams

But it was a religion which enabled him to despise himself and everyone else without despising the universe, thus allowing him at once in argument or conversation to the advantages of the pessimist and the optimist. ~ Charles Williams

The immortal sadness of youth possessed her, and the sorrow of which youth is not always conscious, the lucid knowledge of her unsatisfied desires. There was nothing, she thought, that could be trusted; the dearest delight might betray, the gayest friendship open upon a treachery and a martyrdom. Of her friends, of her young male friends especially, pleasant as they were, there was not one, she thought, who held that friendship important for her sake rather than for his own enjoyment. Even that again was but her own selfishness; what right had she to the devotion of any other? And was there any devotion beyond the sudden overwhelming madness of sex? And in that hot airless tunnel of emotion what pleasure was there and what joy? Laughter died there, and lucidity, and the clear intelligence she loved, and there was nothing of the peace for which she hungered. . . . Most of all she hated herself. The dark mystery of being that possessed her held no promise of light, but she turned to it and sank into it content so as to avoid the world. ~ Charles Williams

Charles Williams has said of the Lord's Prayer, "No word in English carries a greater possibility of terror than the little word 'as' in that clause." What makes the 'as' so terrifying? The fact that Jesus plainly links our forgiven-ness by the Father with our forgiving-ness of fellow human beings. Jesus' next remark could not be more explicit: 'If you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.' ~ Philip Yancey

, Stanhope delayed a moment behind Miss Fox to add: "The substantive, of course, governs the adjective; not the other way round."
"The substantive?" Pauline asked blankly.
"Good. It contains terror, not terror good. I'm keeping you. Good-bye, Periel," and he was gone. ~ Charles Williams

If you're looking for can-do, earthy-crunchy attitude then you've got to go to Wisconsin. ~ Dar Williams

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

I ended up buying a restaurant. Already we had invested in a gas station and a metal products plant. ~ Esther Williams

I wish somebody would just give me a couple of million dollars a year, so that I could do a play based on every little fantasy I have. ~ Charles Busch

I stood there for a few more seconds, watching her go. And I couldn't do anything but admire her courage, her compassion. I wanted her. I wanted her so badly I was shaking. ~ Charles Sheehan-Miles

I've written extensively on Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth and seen up close how those women, who were born when the country hoped for a male heir, made their way as leaders. ~ Kate Williams

The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New Year! The Old Year was already looked upon as dead; and its effects were selling cheap, like some drowned mariner's aboardship. Its patterns were Last Year's, and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was gone. Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches of its unborn successor! ~ Charles Dickens

I need to go to my yoga class - I love hot yoga! ~ Kimberly Williams-Paisley

To conclude, dear Reader, the world of men is a noisy, testosterone-laden swirling vortex of bullshit. ~ Charles J. Orlando

There are moments of existence when time and space are more profound, and the awareness of existence is immensely heightened. ~ Charles Baudelaire

Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce

But she couldn't dismiss easily his light touch with her. No pushing or pressing, none of that herding and corralling bullshit, unlike any of her old boyfriends. And maybe who you fell for and who you eventually loved wasn't rational, no matter how hard you tried to list pros and cons and sum the results. You couldn't think your way through it, not all the way. Maybe just the scent of somebody carried more weight than everything else put together. ~ Charles Frazier

My goal is always the same: to keep the other player from ever scoring a point. That doesn't always happen, but that's what I try for. ~ Venus Williams

I was 24 yesterday. Suddenly you wake up, and you get on the elevator, and there's a mirror there. And you look in the mirror, and you're an old man. ~ Charles Nelson Reilly

For all the practical purposes of life, truth might as well be in a prison as in the folio of a schoolman; and those who release her from her cobwebbed shelf and teach her to live with men have the merit of liberating, if not of discovering, her. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

As a youngster, I never dreamed there could be a career actually earning a living writing music. ~ John Williams

I love what I do, I love my job. ~ Pharrell Williams

I have always believed that the aristocracy of any country should be the men who have succeeded - the men who have aided in upbuilding their country - the men who have contributed to the efficiency and happiness of their fellow men. ~ Charles M. Schwab

Hospitals and jails and whores: these are the universities of life. I've got several degrees. Call me Mr. ~ Charles Bukowski

Despair the twin-born of devotion. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

The problem with a wish list was what it told you about the person who wrote it. If it's honest, it's a rock-bottom, barebones, clear shot all the way to someone's soul.
Hats can do the same thing. ~ Charles Martin

The solution to the problems of the church today lies in solving the problems of individual Christians, and the remedy is a person - the Holy Spirit. ~ Charles C. Ryrie

Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me! ~ Frank Muir

Sign on a High School bulletin board in Dallas: Free every Monday through Friday-knowledge. Bring your own containers. ~ Charles E. McKenzie

Minutes, foolish mortal, are the base mineral
that you must not let go of without extracting their gold! ~ Charles Baudelaire

Believe
Believe in yourself
Believe that you are good enough.
Believe good things will happen.
Believe in the love you have.
Believe in faith.
Believe and life will guide you. ~ Charles E Hudson

...my fingers were trembling as I pressed the number eleven on the elevator panel; my heart was smashing violently against my ribs with the consciousness of reckless guilt. Or rather, the consciousness of an absence of guilt: that I didn't care, didn't give a damn. That it was my turn to break things, to hurt someone irreparably. ~ Beatriz Williams

It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people."36 ~ Charles Duhigg

God blesses us so that we might bless others! ~ Charles Stanley

Having bought truth dear, we must not sell it cheap, not the least grain of it for the whole world. ~ Roger Williams

You eat meat with your teeth and you kill things that are better than you are, and in the same respect you say how bad and even killers that your children are. You make your children what they are. ~ Charles Manson

Only fools think they're wise; the rest of us just muddle through as we can. ~ Charles De Lint

Our income are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and trip. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

If it ain't broke, don't break it. ~ Charles Oakley

I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions. ~ Charles Bukowski

He was by no means opposed to hard labour on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by the day together, - running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave. ~ Charles Dickens

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

The supposed astronomical proofs of the theory [of relativity], as cited and claimed by Einstein, do not exist. He is a confusionist. The Einstein theory is a fallacy. The theory that ether does not exist, and that gravity is not a force but a property of space can only be described as a crazy vagary, a disgrace to our age. ~ Charles Lane Poor