quotes by Madeleine L'Engle

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God"
— Madeleine L'Engle

"When we lose our myths we lose our place in the universe."
— Madeleine L'Engle

""Life , with it's rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you." -- Mrs. Whatsit "
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time)

"No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I've been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again — till next time. I've learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won't stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed. "
— Madeleine L'Engle

"In my dreams, I never have an age."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine."
— Madeleine L'Engle

""Like and equal are not the same thing at all." -- Meg Murray"
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time)

"I do not know everything;
still many things I understand"
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time)

"It might be a good idea if, like the White Queen, we practised believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast, for we are called on to believe what to many people is impossible. Instead of rejoicing in this glorious "impossible" which gives meaning and dignity to our lives, we try to domesticate God, to make his might actions comprehensible to our finite minds. "
— Madeleine L'Engle

"At Tara in this fateful hour,
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness:
All these I place,
By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness!"
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Swiftly Tilting Planet)

"Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth."
— Madeleine L'Engle

"death is contagious; it is contracted the moment we are conceived."
— Madeleine L'Engle

""They are very young. And on their earth, as they call it, they never communicate with other planets. They revolve about all alone in space."
"Oh," the thin beast said. "Aren't they lonely?""
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time)

"Creative scientists and saints expect revelation and do not fear it. Neither do children. But as we grow up and we are hurt, we learned not to trust. "
— Madeleine L'Engle

"If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation." "
— Madeleine L'Engle

"Love of music, of sunsets and sea; a liking for the same kind of people; political opinions that are not radically divergent; a similar stance as we look at the stars and think of the marvelous strangeness of the universe - these are what build a marriage. And it is never to be taken for granted."
— Madeleine L'Engle (Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (The Crosswicks Journal, Book 4))

"We do learn and develop when we are exposed to those who are greater than we are. Perhaps this is the chief way we mature."
— Madeleine L'Engle (Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (The Crosswicks Journal, Book 4))