Quotes from Madeleine L'Engle

Meg's eyes were too bright. "I wish human beings couldn't have feelings. I am having feelings. They hurt.

I simply take him into my heart, and then put him into God's hand.

If a book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

To be half a century plus is wonderfully exciting, because I haven't lost any of my past, and I am free to stand on the rock of all that the past has taught me as I look to the future.

We must pray when prayer seems dry as dust; we must write when we are physically tired, when our hearts are heavy, when our bodies are in pain.

Lords of spirit, Lords of breath, Lords of fireflies, stars, and light, Who will keep the world from death? Who will stop the coming night? Blue eyes, blue eyes, have the sight.

It was not an end, it was a beginning.

But I'm not patient! cried Meg passionately. I've never been patient!

But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos becomes essential.

Anything that stretches the mind is a help to the potential author.

A book, too, can be a star, explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.

A life form which can't adapt doesn't last very long.

If I'm confused, or upset, or angry, if I can go out and look at the stars I'll almost always get back a sense of proportion. It's not that they make me feel insignificant; it's the very opposite; they make me feel that everything matters, be it ever so small, and that there's meaning to life even when it seems most meaningless.

Story always tells us more than the mere words, and that is why we love to write it, and to read it.

Maybe I don't like being different, Meg said. but I don't want to be like everybody else, either.

We want nothing from you that you do without grace or [...] understanding.

Who makes you least confused? Calvin There was no hesitation here. When I'm with Calvin, I don't mind being me You mean he makes you more you, don't you? I guess you could put it that way.

Our country in general assumes that the pursuit of happiness really means the pursuit of pleasure and that therefore pleasure is the greatest good.

We human beings grow through our failures, not our virtues.

Man is; it matters to him; this is terrifying unless it matters to God, too, because this is the only possible reason we can matter to ourselves....

One of the hardest lessons I have to learn is how not to be judgmental about people who are judgmental. When I see how wrong somebody is—how shallow it is to look at the Resurrection as a mere, explainable fact—when I see only the mistakenness of others, then I am blinded to their being children of God, who are just as valued and treasured as are those who more nearly agree with me.

She always had to have someone to love...She couldn't seem to believe that anyone could really love her. She always thought it was because she was a star, not just because of her herself, and she always had to be reassured.

Carrying my babies was a marvelous mystery, lives growing unseen except by the slow swelling of my belly. Death is an even greater mystery. ... The God I cry out to in anguish or joy can neither be proved nor disapproved. The hope I have that death is not the end of all our questions can neither be proved nor disproved.

Probably the worst thing that has happened to our understanding of reality has been the acceptance of ourselves as consumers.