The figure of Aslan tells us more of how [C. S.] Lewis understood the nature of God more than anything else he wrote. It has all the hidden power and majesty and awesomeness which Lewis associated with God, but also the glory and the tenderness and even the humor which he believed belonged to him, so that children could run up to him and throw their arms around him.

Bede Griffiths, qtd. in Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis, by George Sayer