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

An hour's conversation on literature between two ardent minds with a common devotion to a neglected poet is a miraculous road to intimacy.

— 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

Harry,” she said, her voice a little thick with the whiskey. “You found the way, didn’t you?” What’s so wonderful about it? I thought. Dogs do.

— Charles Williams

Have you by any chance an edition of St. Ignatius's treatise against the Gnostics?" he asked in a low clear voice. The young assistant looked gravely back. "Not for sale, I'm afraid," he said. "Nor, if it comes to that, the Gnostic treatises against St. Ignatius." "Quite," Anthony answered.

— Charles Williams

Hell is indefinite.

— Charles Williams

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

— Charles Williams

I generally give the title-page a fair chance," Roger said. "Once can't always judge books merely by the cover.

— 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

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

— Charles Williams