Quotes from Madeleine L'Engle

Again Mrs Which's voice reverberated through the cave. "Therre willl nno llonggerr bee sso manyy pplleasanntt thinggss too llookk att iff rressponssible ppeoplle ddo nnott ddoo ssomethingg abboutt thee unnppleassanntt oness.

If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.

William James wrote: "Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground. Just so, there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother sea or reservoir.

Why, my Lord, did you have to bring Me down from the safety of my hill Into the danger of your will? (David p. 34)

Because we suddenly see that making everything all right would NOT make everything all right. We would not be human beings. We would then be no more than puppets obeying the strings of the master puppeteer. We agree sadly that it is a good thing that we are not God; we do not have to understand God's ways, or the suffering and brokenness and pain that sooner or later come to us all.

Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many things endurable--perhaps everything.... It is not that 'God' is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man. It is not we who invent myth; rather, it speaks to us as a Word of God.

Freedom is a terrible gift, and the theory behind all dictatorships is that the people do no want freedom.

The Great God Science. It has failed us, because it was never meant to be a god, but only a few true scientists understand that.

The rain is raining all around," Uncle Douglas quoted, "It rains on both the just and the unjust fellow. But more, it seems on the just than on the unjust, For the unjust hath the just's umbrella.

Well, the fifth dimension's a tesseract.

Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.

Oh, Meg, you are a moron, Calvin said. Don't you know you're the nicest thing that's happened to me in a long time?

Our sins defeat us unless we are willing to recognize them, confess them, and so become healed and whole and holy -- not qualified, mind you; just holy.

To love anyone is to hope in him always. From the moment at which we begin to judge anyone, to limit our confidence in him, from the moment at which we identify [pigeonhole] him, and so reduce him to that, we cease to love him, and he ceases to be able to become better. We must dare to love in a world that does not know how to love.

Time is inextricably tangled up with place, and can be measured only against place. Time has meaning only in relation to its position in space, the movement of a planet about a sun, of a night through stars.

That's quite something, to be loved by someone like Mrs Whatsit.

I do not think that it is naïve to think that it is the tiny, particular acts of love and joy which are going to swing the balance, rather than general, impersonal charities.

I am a mere unicorn. Gaudior dropped his silver lashes modestly.

But you see, Meg, just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist.

And When is not what matters. It's what happens in the When that matters.

Gregory of Nyssa points out that Moses's vision of God began with the light, with the visible burning bush, the bush which was bright with fire and was not consumed; but afterwards, God spoke to him in a cloud. After the glory which could be seen with human eyes, he began to see the glory which is beyond and after light. The shadows are deepening all around us.

Sure, go ahead." Calvin fished in his pocket and pulled out a wad of folded paper. "As a matter of fact, I have some junk of mine to finish up. Math. That's one thing I have a hard time keeping up in. I'm okay on anything to do with words, but I don't do as well with numbers.

And as long as there are even a few who belong to the Old Music, you are still our brothers and sisters.

I hate it! Charles Wallace cried passionately. I hate the Dark Thing!