A Live Coal in the Sea Quotes

“But all the wickedness in the world which man may do or think is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal dropped in the sea.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“When two people, lovers, or sometimes friends, have an enduring care for each other, allow each other to be human, faulted, flawed, but real, then being human becomes a glorious thing to be. If the human race ever makes progress, that is how.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“Don’t try to make comparisons. By whose standards do we compare?”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“Just as there are some wounds the greatest physicians cannot heal, so there are wounds of the soul that no human being can heal.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“I think this is one of the situations where there is no right choice. We have to pray that we make the choice that is the least wrong.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“We do wrong, with all the best will in the world. And sometimes we do right without even knowing it.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“Ptolemy said, “Mortal though I be, yea, ephemeral, if but a moment I gaze up at night’s starry domain of heaven, then no longer on earth I stand: I touch the Creator and my lively spirit drinketh immortality.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“think your mother-in-law understands particulars. She’s not a do-gooder, because most do-gooders deal in generalities. She never loses sight of the particular person, the unique human need.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars. General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“What we must look for is God’s mercy. God’s mercy shown through our own.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“believe God can come into the terrible things and redeem them.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“God doesn’t plan the horrors. They happen. But God can come into them.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“Mercy. It didn’t mean that everything was okay, could or should be condoned. But we can’t move out of ourselves and our own self-justifications until we look in the mirror and know, yes, I, too, could have done this. Or worse. My anger at my mother. At Mama for telling me things I don’t want to know.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“You’re not responsible for how you feel. You’re responsible for what you do,”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea

“Most parents probably deserve to be punished for one reason or another. Mostly their children don’t act on it.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Live Coal in the Sea