Shasta / Prince Cor Quotes

″‘Child,’ said the Lion, ‘I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.‘”

“The light was too bad now for Shasta to see much of the cat except that it was very big and very solemn. It looked as if it might have lived for long, long years among the Tombs, alone. It’s eyes made you think it knew secrets it would not tell.”

“A dozen different plans went through his head, all wretched ones, and at last he fixed on the worst plan of all. He decided to wait till it was dark and then go back to the river and ... set out for Mount Pire alone, trusting for his direction to the line he had drawn that morning in the sand. It was a crazy idea and if he had read as many books as you have about journeys over deserts he would never have dreamed of it. But Shasta had read no books at all.”

“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.”

″‘I was the lion ... I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.‘”

″‘Please, your Majesty,’ said Shasta to King Edmund, ‘I was no traitor, really I wasn’t. And I couldn’t help hearing your plans. But I’d never have dreamed of telling them to your enemies.’ ‘I know now that you were no traitor, boy,’ said King Edmund, laying his hand on Shasta’s head. ‘But if you would not be taken for one, another time try not to hear what’s meant for other ears. But all’s well.‘”

“Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I’m afraid even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up they were so used to quarreling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently.”

″‘In other words,’ it continued, ‘you can’t ride. That’s a drawback. I’ll have to teach you as we go along. If you can’t ride, can you fall?’ ‘I suppose anyone can fall,’ said Shasta. ‘I mean can you fall and get up again without crying and mount again and fall again and yet not be afraid of falling?‘”