# Quote — C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

> I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.

- Author: [C. S. Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/c-s-lewis.md)
- Book: [The Screwtape Letters](https://www.leafyquotes.com/c-s-lewis/the-screwtape-letters.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis#The_Screwtape_Letters_(1942)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/c-s-lewis/the-screwtape-letters/i-live-in-the

## More from this book

> Courtship is the time for sowing those seeds which will grow up ten years into domestic hatred.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/c-s-lewis/the-screwtape-letters/courtship-is-the.md)

> The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavour. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.

p. 17 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/c-s-lewis/the-screwtape-letters/the-enemy-allows.md)

> A sensible human once said, "If people knew how much ill-feeling unselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from the pulpit"; and again, "She's the sort of woman who lives for others — you can always tell the others by their hunted expression."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/c-s-lewis/the-screwtape-letters/a-sensible-human.md)