Quotes from Madeleine L'Engle

Life...is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.

Euripides. Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything.

He is : frog: unworried by the self-consciousness with which the human animal is stuck; it is our blessing and our curse; not only do we know, we know that we know. And we are not often willing to face how little we know.

I can't do it for love of God, like Tom Tallis, or for heaven's sake, as Mr. Frost said. But because I love people I have to act according to it—to the fact that I love them.

Maybe the job of the artist is to see through all of this strangeness to what really is, and that takes a lot of courage and a strong faith in the validity of the artistic vision even if there is not a conscious faith in God.

Meg cut up some celery and mixed it in with the tuna. After a moment's hesitation she opened the refrigerator door and brought out a jar of little sweet pickles.-Though why I'm doing it for her I don't know, she thought, as she cut them up.-I don't trust her one bit.

Stories, no matter how simple, can be vehicles of truth; can be, in fact, icons. It's no coincidence that Jesus taught almost entirely by telling stories, simple stories dealing with the stuff of life familiar to the Jews of his day. Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.

It's my worst trouble, getting fond. If I didn't get fond I could be happy all the time.

Le cæur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point. French. Pascal. The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing.

But what is real? In the Bible we are constantly being given glimpses of a reality quite different from that taught in school, even in Sunday school. And these glimpses are not given to the qualified; there's the marvel. It may be that the qualified feel no need of them.

And joy, Grandfather would remind me, joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.

It isn't just in distant galaxies that strange, unreasonable things are happening. Unreason has crept up on us so insidiously that we've hardly been aware of it. But think of the things going on in our own country which you wouldn't have believed possible only a few years ago.

She knew that the freedom was in herself, just as the prison had been.

Her father said, "You know, my dears, the world has been abnormal for so long that we've forgotten what it's like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes." "Even at a time like this?" Meg asked. The call from Calvin, the sound of her husband's voice, had nearly broken her control. "Especially at a time like this," her mother said gently.

If someone knows who he is, really knows, then he doesn't need to hate.

When I get this feeling, this compulsion, I always do what it tells me. I can't explain where it comes from or how I get it, and it doesn't happen very often. But I obey

We look not at the things which are what you could call seen, but the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal.

Adam thus bequeathed us his death, not his sin … We do not inherit the sins of our fathers, even though we may be made to endure their punishment. Guilt cannot be transmitted. We are linked to Adam only by his memory, which becomes our own, and by his death, which foreshadows our own. Not by his sin.

Just relax and don't worry over things that needn't trouble you," Mrs Whatsit said.

We knew the promise had never been safety, or that bad things would not happen if we were good and virtuous. The promise is only that God is in it with us, no matter what it is.

I've made myself vulnerable I've let myself care. I've opened my firmly closed heart. My safety is gone It's no longer there My protection is falling apart. Nobody promised Our hearts would be safe Or our bodies protected from harm. A moment can change All we think that we have, Hope will endure through the storm. Troubling a Star Madeleine L'Engle

Oh, my darling, you're not dumb," her father answered. "You're like Charles Wallace. Your development has to go at its own pace. It just doesn't happen to be the usual pace.

I wish human beings couldn't have feelings. I am having feelings. They hurt.

Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.