UPDATED (9/29/18) – The Misquotable C.S. Lewis is my book that examines 75 quotations attributed to Lewis that I caution you not to share. Some are falsely attributed to him, others are paraphrases of his words, and a few have context issues. Don’t share a quote attributed to Lewis unless you can confirm he wrote it and the meaning is clear without the context!
The following is a quote I examined that led me to writing The Misquotable C.S. Lewis. I bean calling quotes like this “questionable” because I wanted people to question whether or not Lewis wrote it. This led me to coming up with three main categories, or types of misquotes. You can learn about that in the INTRODUCTION to this series. There is also an “at a glance” page to see what quotations I’ve covered in the online series. Please note that the book has revised entries and provide more details about the expressions examined.
“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”
This is a quotation I hadn’t seen until John Trainer asked me about it on September 24, 2016 via Facebook. You might recall his name, as one of his quotes is falsely attributed to Lewis. It was the tenth in this series, about children not being a distraction. Lewis has written on the topic of friendship specifically in The Four Loves, but the above quotation isn’t found there (and it’s not in his other works either). However, there is a similar expression found online attributed to another person.
The Goodreads site gives credit to someone named Donna Roberts for the following:
“A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.”
As far back as 2007 (yea, I know that’s not very far, but in “Internet time,” it’s a fair distance) Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend by Lisa J. Copen credits Donna Roberts as the author. A variety of places online credit “anonymous” or “unknown” for the version alleged to be from Lewis.
If the version credited to Roberts is correct then it seems as though someone wasn’t aware of her expression. Then, knowing Lewis wrote so many wonderful things and that he believed strongly in friendship someone must have thought it was Lewis who said the quotation in question.
WHAT LEWIS SAID THAT’S RELATED (or closest to it):
“Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a good fire?”
from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 2 (to Dom Bede Griffiths on December 21, 1941)
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“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival. “
from The Four Loves (Chapter 4)
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“The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are. ”
from Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem (in Selected Literary Essays)
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“People who bore one another should meet seldom; people who interest one another, often.”
from The Four Loves (Chapter 4)
The next article is:
“Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you never know who would love the person you hide.”
Related Articles:
Surprised By Misquotes (2018 Taylor Talk)
Exploring C.S. Lewis Misquotes and Misconceptions (2017 6-part podcast series)
What Lewis NEVER Wrote (Podcast)
Not Quite Lewis – Podcast Version
Not Quite Lewis – Questionable Lewisian Quotations (Conf. Paper)
Updated 9/29/2018
Originally posted 10/8/2016
