Humphrey Carpenter Quotes & Sayings

You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth. — Humphrey Carpenter

But, said Lewis, myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver.
No, said Tolkien, they are not.
... just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.
We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.
You mean, asked Lewis, that the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth that works on us in the same way as the others, but a myth that really happened? In that case, he said, I begin to understand. — Humphrey Carpenter

I can write, He floated up to the ceiling, and a baby rabbit came out of his pocket, grew wings, and flew away. And you will believe that it really happened. That's magic, isn't it? — Humphrey Carpenter

The nice thing about being a writer is that you can make magic happen without learning tricks. — Humphrey Carpenter

The poet was, of course, always present to assist the debater. Though the logic of Lewis's Christian apologetics may be fallible, the imagination of the writing with its brilliantly-conceived analogies is itself enough to win a reader to his side. As Austin Farrer expressed it, We think we are listening to an argument; in fact we are presented with a vision; and it is the vision that carries conviction. — Humphrey Carpenter

Autobiography is probably the most respectable form of lying. — Humphrey Carpenter

And though he liked drawing trees he liked most of all to be with trees. He would climb them, lean against them, even talk to them. It saddened him to discover the not everyone shared his feelings towards them. — Humphrey Carpenter