C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

"Scattered trees, never thick enough to be a forest, were everywhere. Shasta, who had lived all his life in an almost tree-less grassland, had never seen so many or so many kinds. If you had been there you would probably have known (he didn't) that he was seeing oaks, beeches, silver birches, rowans, and sweet chestnuts. Rabbits scurried away in every direction as they advanced, and presently they saw a whole herd of fallow deer making off among the trees."

"Oh-my-Father-and-oh-the-delight-of-my-eyes," began the young man, muttering the words very quickly and sulkily and not at all as if the Tisroc were the delight of his eyes."

"Shasta's heart fainted at these words for he felt he had no strength left. And he writhed inside at what seemed the cruelty and unfairness of the demand. He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one."

"Daughter," said the Hermit, "I have now lived a hundred and nine winters in this world and have never met any such thing as Luck."

"And certainly both Horses were doing, if not all they could, all they thought they could; which is not quite the same thing."

"How well it was said," answered the fisherman, "that swords can be kept off with shields but the Eye of Wisdom pierces through every defense!"

"Justice shall be mixed with mercy. You shall not always be an Ass."

"One of the drawbacks about adventures is that when you come to the most beautiful places you are often too anxious and hurried to appreciate them."

"One of the drawbacks about adventures is that when you come to the most beautiful places you are often too anxious and hurried to appreciate them; so that Arvis (though she remembered them years later) had only a vague impression of gray lawns, quietly bubbling fountains, and the long black shadows of cypress trees."

"But as long as you know you're nobody special, you'll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another."

"O my mistress, do not by any means destroy yourself, for if you live you may yet have good fortune but all the dead are dead alike!"

"And this new air was so delicious, and all his old life seemed so far away, that he forgot for a moment about his bruises and his aching muscles."

"Luckily Shasta had lived all his life too far south in Calormen to have heard the tales that were whispered in Tashbaan about a dreadful Narnian demon that appeared in the form of a lion. And of course he knew none of the true stories about Aslan, the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, the HIgh King above all high kings in Narnia. But after one glance at the Lion's face he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He couldn't say anything but then he didn't want to say anything, and he knew he needn't say anything. The High King above all kings stooped towards him. Its mane, and some strange and solemn perfume that hung about the mane, was all round him. It touched his forehead with its tongue. He lifted his face and their eyes met. Then instantly the pale brightness of the mist and fiery brightness of the Lion rolled themselves together into a swirling glory and gathered themselves up and disappeared. He was alone with the horse on a grassy hillside under a blue sky. And there were birds singing."

"We are a little land. And little lands on the borders of a great empire were always hateful to the lords of the great empire. He longs to blot them out, gobble them up."

"But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself."

"I who know many present things by my art," replied the Hermit with a smile, "have yet little knowledge of things future. Therefore I do not know whether any man or woman or beast in the whole world will be alive when the sun sets tonight. But be of good hope. The damsel is likely to live as long as any her age."

"Then Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh and trotted across to the Lion. "Please," she said, "you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."

"Onward and Upward! To Narnia and the North!"

"When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better."

"Do not dare not to dare."