Thursday's Quotables: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle

(Amazon link)

      Beth Revis, author of the YA book Across the Universe & its upcoming sequel A Million Suns, is hosting a Thanksgiving giveaway for -get this- 19 YA BOOKS! In order to participate you need to create a post featuring the ONE book you are most grateful for.
      For me, this "one book" is The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (which is apparently Beth's favorite too. And yes, I read all seven stories in one book -the one shown on the right). I read these stories for the first time as an adult, in my early twenties. I am so glad that I did. If I had read them as a child, I would have thought them to be nice, enjoyable fantasy stories, but to read them at the time I did, as the person I was then, was simply perfect. The impact they had on me was tremendous. The stories were richer and deeper to me than they ever could have been otherwise. I found myself applying the principles and refering to the doctrines of these stories in my daily life, at work, at church, at home. This is why I consider The chronicles of Narnia "the one book" I am most grateful for.
     Since this is Thursday's Quotables, I'm going to share two quotes from one of the stories, namely, The Last Battle.

     Now, each of the Narnia stories is amazing and beautiful and has many quote worthy lines, but the ones that come to my mind initially are found in The Last Battle, the final book in the series.
     Because The Last Battle is a summation and really the pinnacle of all the prior stories, if I had to choose my one favorite out of the seven, I would choose this one -though with the understanding that The Last Battle would not have the impact it does without the happenings and significance of the stories before it.
     With that said, below are two (rather long) quotes from The Last Battle (an a drawing by me!). If you have not read The Last Battle, you may want to avert your eyes now from ***potential spoilers***.

Aslan speaking to the Calormen man, Emeth (and Tash is the god of the Calormen people -a bad god):

"'All the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. 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 Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.'

'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.'"

-in Further Up and Further In, The Last Battle, The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

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The very last paragraph and last lines of the whole Narnia story concerning Aslan and the Pevensie children (and what happened to them, minus Susan, of course):

((original artwork by me))

"And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion...And for us this is the end...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 last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

-in Farewell to Shadowlands, The Last Battle, The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis