The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle Quotes

“Suddenly the King leaned hard on his friend’s neck and bowed his head. ‘Jewel,’ he said, ‘what lies before us? Horrible thoughts arise in my heart. If we had died before today we should have been happy.’ ‘Yes,’ said Jewel. ‘We have lived too long. The worst thing in the world has come upon us.’ They stood like that for a minute or two and then went on.”

″‘Excuse me,’ said the Cat very politely, ‘but this interests me. Does your friend from Calormen say the same?’ ‘Assuredly,’ said the Calormene. ‘The enlightened Ape--Man, I mean--is in the right. Aslan means neither less nor more than Tash.’ ‘Especially, Aslan means no more than Tash?’ suggested the Cat. ‘No more at all,’ said the Calormene, looking the Cat straight in the face. ‘Is that good enough for you, Ginger?’ said the Ape. ‘Oh certainly,’ said Ginger cooly, ‘Thank you very much. I only wanted to be quite clear. I think I am beginning to understand.‘”

“Tirian had never dreamed that one of the results of an Ape’s setting up a false Aslan would be to stop people from believing in the real one.”

“Remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy.”

“The Bear lay on the ground, moving feebly. Then it mumbled in its throaty voice, bewildered to the last, ‘I--I don’t--understand,’ laid its big head down on the grass as quietly as a child going to sleep, and never moved again.”

“A new idea came into Tirian’s head. He dropped his sword, darted forward, in under the sweep of the Tarkaan’s scimitar, seized his enemy by the belt with both hands, and jumped back into the stable shouting: ‘Come in and meet Tash yourself!’ There was a deafening noise. As when the Ape had been flung in, the earth shook and there was a blinding light.”

“Then he fixed his eyes upon Tirian, and Tirian came near, trembling, and flung himself at the Lion’s feet, and the Lion kissed him and said, ‘Well done, last of the Kings of Narnia who stood firm at the darkest hour.‘”

″‘Yes,’ said Aslan, though [Eustace and Jill] had not spoken, ‘While he lay dreaming, his name was Time. Now that he is awake he will have a new one.‘”

″‘Peter, High King of Narnia,’ said Aslan. ‘Shut the Door.’ Peter, shivering with cold, leaned out into the darkness and pulled the Door to. It scraped over ice as he pulled it. Then, rather clumsily (for even in that moment his hands had gone numb and blue) he took out a golden key and locked it.‘”

“I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook ... and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name of Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, Thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”

“No fear of that... Have you not guessed?... There was a real railway accident ... Your father and mother and all of you are--as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands--dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

“And has He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at least they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.”

“And then she understood the devilish cunning of the enemies’ plan. By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger.”

“They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”

“I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog.”

“Tirian, with his head against Jewel’s flank, slept as soundly as if he were in his royal bed at Cair Paravel, till the sound of a gong beating awoke him and he sat up and saw that there was firelight on the far side of the stable and knew that the hour had come. ‘Kiss me, Jewel,’ he said. ‘For certainly this is our last night on earth. And if ever I offended against you in any matter great or small, forgive me now.’ ‘Dear King,’ said the Unicorn, ‘I could almost wish you had, so that I might forgive it. Farewell. We have known great joys together. If Aslan gave me my choice I would choose no other life than the life I have had and no other death than the one we go to.‘”

“Has not one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift and a noble enemy the next best?”

“I’d rather be killed fighting for Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a bath-chair and then die in the end just the same.”

“‘Do you think I care if Aslan dooms me to death?’ said the King. ‘That would be nothing, nothing at all. Would it not be better to be dead than to have this horrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in and longed for? It is as if the sun rose one day and were a black sun.‘”

“‘Yes,’ said Queen Lucy. ‘In our world too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.‘”