The Magician's Nephew

No great wisdom can be reached without sacrifice.

I don’t mean another planet, you know; they’re part of our world and you could get to them if you went far enough—but a really Other World—another Nature another universe—somewhere you would never reach even if you travelled through the space of this universe for ever and ever—a world that could be reached only by Magic—well

was jolly rotten of you

he rubbed his hands and made his knuckles crack

Uncle Andrew was tall and very thin. He had a long clean-shaven face with a sharply-pointed nose and extremely bright eyes and a great tousled mop of grey hair

Neither of them said the word “haunted”

certain little door

“Perhaps he keeps a mad wife shut up there.

That was how Polly and Digory got to know

the foot of the attic-stairs