Quote 1
"Please – Aslan," said Lucy, "can anything be done to save Edmund?"
"All shall be done," said Aslan. "But it may be harder than you think." And then he was silent again for some time. Up to that moment Lucy had been thinking how royal and strong and peaceful his face looked; now it suddenly came into her head that he looked sad as well. (12.21-22)
Aslan is willing to make any sacrifice necessary to show mercy to Edmund, but that doesn't stop him from feeling sorry that such a sacrifice is necessary in the first place.
Quote 2
"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!" thought Lucy, going still further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room for her. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet. "I wonder is that more moth balls?" she thought, stooping down to feel it with her hands. But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold. "This is very queer," she said, and went on a step or two further. (1.23)
The first great transformation in the book is the slow transition from our world to Narnia as Lucy keeps walking further and further back into what seems to be a never-ending wardrobe!
Quote 3
"Oh how can they?" said Lucy, tears streaming down her cheeks. "The brutes, the brutes!" for now that the first shock was over the shorn face of Aslan looked to her braver, and more beautiful, and more patient than ever. (14.48)
Aslan's greatest beauty and power comes through in his moments of suffering and trial. His spirit transcends the humiliations he suffers.
Quote 4
"Mr. Tumnus! Whatever is the matter?" for the Faun's brown eyes had filled with tears and then the tears began trickling down his cheeks, and soon they were running off the end of his nose; and at last he covered his face with his hands and began to howl. (2.28)
Mr. Tumnus has what we might call an overdeveloped sense of guilt. He begins to feel bad for betraying Lucy before he's actually done so. In his mind, thinking of betraying her is just as bad as actually doing so; intent is enough to cause guilt.
Quote 5
The children were walking on hour after hour into what seemed a delicious dream. Long ago they had left the coats behind them. And by now they had even stopped saying to one another, "Look! There's a kingfisher!" or "I say, bluebells!" or "What was that lovely smell?" or "Just listen to that thrush!" They walked on in silence drinking it all in, passing through patches of warm sunlight into cool, green thickets and out again into wide mossy glades where tall elms raised the leafy roof far overhead, and then into dense masses of flowering currant and among hawthorn bushes where the sweet smell was almost overpowering. (12.1)
Peter, Susan, and Lucy have an innate appreciation for the beauties of nature.
Quote 6
"It's an owl," said Peter. "This is going to be a wonderful place for birds. I shall go to bed now. I say, let's go and explore to-morrow. You might find anything in a place like this. Did you see those mountains as we came along? And the woods? There might be eagles. There might be stags. There'll be hawks."
"Badgers!" said Lucy.
"Snakes!" said Edmund.
"Foxes!" said Susan. (1.12-15)
As soon as the children arrive at the Professor's house in the country, they are excited about the possibility of exploring the wilderness around them. What they don't realize is that they will be exploring a wilderness – but in a completely different world.
Quote 7
Lucy felt very frightened, but she felt inquisitive and excited as well. She looked back over her shoulder and there, between the dark tree-trunks, she could still see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had set out. (She had, of course, left the door open, for she knew that it is a very silly thing to shut oneself into a wardrobe.) It seemed to be still daylight there. "I can always get back if anything goes wrong," thought Lucy. (1.25)
Lucy balances her desire to see what's out there with her instinct to remain safe by keeping the wardrobe door open – literally maintaining the connection between the unfamiliar and the familiar.
Quote 8
The coats were rather too big for them so that they came down to their heels and looked more like royal robes than coats when they had put them on. But they all felt a good deal warmer and each thought the others looked better in their new get-up and more suitable to the landscape.
"We can pretend we are Arctic explorers," said Lucy.
"This is going to be exciting enough without any pretending," said Peter, as he began leading the way forward into the forest. (6.21-23)
Lucy, the youngest, is still ready to treat Narnia as a child's adventure game, but Peter has realized that they are starting off on a much more important quest.