Top 100 L'engle Quotes
#1. We did not have a television while I was growing up, and so I read voraciously. My earliest memory of being utterly transfixed by a book was Madeleine L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle in Time.'
Dan Brown
#2. The folks I read as a kid really set me up. I owe a huge debt to Ray Bradbury and Madeleine L'Engle.
Karen Russell
#3. writes Madeleine L'Engle, "in kairos we are completely un-self-conscious and yet paradoxically far more real than we can ever be when we are constantly checking our watches for chronological time."10
Sarah Arthur
#4. Madeleine L'Engle said, "the great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."58 I think the same is true for churches. Each one stays with us, even after we've left, adding layer after layer to the palimpsest of our faith.
Rachel Held Evans
#5. You'll be amazed how much you have in common with Edith Wharton (who struggled to feel worthy of success), Louisa May Alcott (who badly needed money), Madaleine L'Engle (who could have papered an entire house with her rejection letters) and other writers...
Nava Atlas
#6. I'm from the Madeleine L'Engle school. The more she delves into science, the more she knows there's a creator who's behind these amazing laws, these amazing events. The symmetry of nature, the structure and order of it.
Tom Shadyac
#7. I love Chris Crutcher, Sara Zarr, Lois Lowry, Elizabeth Scott, Madeleine L'Engle, Gordon Korman, Michelle Magorian, Heather Bouwman.
Lisa McMann
#8. I loved Madeleine L'Engle as a child - 'A Wrinkle in Time.'
Amity Gaige
#10. But we know that just because we want something does not mean that we will get what we want,
Madeleine L'Engle
#11. In my tadpole stage I was delivered to Metron Ariston and transmogrified, and here am I. My name is Sporos, by the way, and I do not like your thinking names like mouse-creature and shrimp-thing at me.
Madeleine L'Engle
#12. Ah," she said, "that's ever so much better," and took both boots and shook them out over the sink. "My stomach is full and I'm warm inside and out and it's time I went home.
Madeleine L'Engle
#13. Unlearning is the choice, conscious or unconscious, of any real artist. And it is the true sign of maturity.
Madeleine L'Engle
#14. The primary needs can be filled without language. We can eat, sleep, make love, build a house, bear children, without language. But we cannot ask questions. We cannot ask, 'Who am I? Who are you? Why?
Madeleine L'Engle
#15. If the artist reflects only his own culture, then his works will die with that culture. But if his works reflect the eternal and universal, they will revive.
Madeleine L'Engle
#16. Oh, girl, not woman, more than child, Which of us two is the more wild? So
Madeleine L'Engle
#17. If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.
Madeleine L'Engle
#18. The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.
Madeleine L'Engle
#19. You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? Yes. Mrs. Whatsit said. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.
Madeleine L'Engle
#20. Anger is not bitterness. Bitterness can go on eating at a man's heart and mind forever. Anger spends itself in its own time.
Madeleine L'Engle
#22. Embracing her now would have been like trying to hug a sunbeam
Madeleine L'Engle
#24. Accepting that we are angry is a healthy and appropriate response as long as we don't get stuck in it. Acknowledging it is one way of going through it.
Madeleine L'Engle
#25. On a planet that has given in... you must prepare to be very strong.
Madeleine L'Engle
#26. We don't want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have been opened to us. We don't want to close a book with a sense that life is totally unfair and that there is no light in the darkness; we want to feel that we have been given illumination.
Madeleine L'Engle
#27. Matter and energy are the same thing, that size is an illusion, and that time is a material substance.
Madeleine L'Engle
#28. The concentration of a small child at play is analogous to the concentration of the artist of any discipline. In real play, which is real concentration, the child is not only outside time, he is outside himself.
Madeleine L'Engle
#29. Integrity, like humility, is a quality which vanishes the moment we are conscious of it in ourselves. We see it only in others.
Madeleine L'Engle
#30. It seemed to travel with her, to sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too, felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real.
Madeleine L'Engle
#31. Creativity comes from accepting that you're not safe, from being absolutely aware, and from letting go of control. It's a matter of seeing everything - even when you want to shut your eyes.
Madeleine L'Engle
#32. In the act of creativity, the artist lets go the self-control which he normally clings to and is open to riding the wind.
Madeleine L'Engle
#33. Goodbyes are not easy, but I'm ready to move on. I'm not reluctant, Emma, not holding back. I don't have answers to the questions, but I have some good questions. I have loved life, but I believe that life is to be loved, it is a gift.
Madeleine L'Engle
#35. When we make ourselves vulnerable, we do open ourselves to pain, sometimes excruciating pain. The more people we love, the more we are liable to be hurt, and not only by the people we love, but for the people we love.
Madeleine L'Engle
#36. Now the red eyes and the light above seemed to bore into Charles, and again the pupils fo the little boy's eyes contracted. When the final point of black was lost in blue he turned away from the red eyes, looked at Meg, and smiled sweetly, but the smile was not Charles Wallaces smile.
Madeleine L'Engle
#37. IT was the most horrible, the most repellent thing she had ever seen, far more nauseating then anything she had ever imagined with her consious mind, or that had ever tormented her in her most terrible nightmares.
Madeleine L'Engle
#39. In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we were asked to endure ...
Madeleine L'Engle
#40. We are a generation which is crying loudly to tear down all structure in order to find freedom, and discovering, when order is demolished, that instead of freedom we have death.
Madeleine L'Engle
#41. Artists ... all have a need that cannot be met by another human being.
Madeleine L'Engle
#42. Sometimes idiosyncrasies which used to be irritating become endearing, part of the complexity of a partner who has become woven deep into our own selves.
Madeleine L'Engle
#43. If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
Madeleine L'Engle
#44. My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe.
Madeleine L'Engle
#45. Nothing really important in life is in the realm of provable fact.
Madeleine L'Engle
#46. We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledging that they cannot take us all the way.
Madeleine L'Engle
#47. With our human limitations we're not always able to understand the explanations.
Madeleine L'Engle
#48. Don't be afraid ... " We need this reassurance. Even for those of us who believe implicitly in angels, to be confronted by one is an awesome thing."
Madeleine L'Engle
#49. Your intuition and your intellect should be working together ... making love. That's how it works best.
Madeleine L'Engle
#50. There is little character or loveliness in the face of someone who has shunned risk, avoided suffering and rejected life
Madeleine L'Engle
#51. We cannot always cry at the right time
and who is to say which time is right?
Madeleine L'Engle
#52. It is ... through the world of the imagination which takes us beyond the restrictions of provable fact, that we touch the hem of truth.
Madeleine L'Engle
#53. 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.
Madeleine L'Engle
#54. A great painting or symphony or play, doesn't diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of Creation behind the Universe ..
Madeleine L'Engle
#55. When a character wants to do one thing and I want him to do another, the character is usually right.
Madeleine L'Engle
#56. From the shoulders, slowly a pair of wings unfolded, wings made of rainbows, of light upon water, of poetry.
Calvin fell to his knees.
"No," Mrs. Whatsit said, though her voice was not Mrs. Whatsit's voice. "Not to me Calvin. Never to me. Stand up.
Madeleine L'Engle
#57. Because of the very nature of the world as it is today, our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific and analytic subjects, so it is in their reading for fun, for pleasure, that they must be guided into creativity.
Madeleine L'Engle
#58. There was no light. The darkness was deep and there was no dazzle.
Madeleine L'Engle
#59. The medieval mystics say the true image and the true real met once and for all on the cross: once and for all: and yet they still meet daily.
Madeleine L'Engle
#60. I hate it!" Charles Wallace cried passionately. "I hate the Dark Thing!
Madeleine L'Engle
#61. The artist cannot hold back; it is impossible, because writing, or any other discipline of art, involves participation in suffering, in the ills and the occasional stabbing joys that come from being part of the human drama.
Madeleine L'Engle
#62. Detachment and involvement: the artist must have both. The link between them is compassion. It has taken me over fifty years to get a glimmer of what this means.
Madeleine L'Engle
#63. Ananda: that joy without which the universe will fall apart and collapse.
Madeleine L'Engle
#64. The child is aware of unlimited potential, and this munificence is one of the joys of creativity.
Those of use who struggle in our own ways, small or great, trickles or rivers, to create, are constantly having to unlearn what the world would teach us...
Madeleine L'Engle
#65. But I did feel, and passionately, that it wasn't fair of God to give us brains enough to ask the ultimate questions if he didn't intend to teach us the answers.
Madeleine L'Engle
#66. It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.
Madeleine L'Engle
#67. We're not peculiar."
"Oh, yes, you are. Don't you realize that in my world my parents are peculiar because they'd never been divorced? Basically because it would have been too much trouble. But you live in a world where not only are your parents not divorced, they appear to love each other
Madeleine L'Engle
#68. Don't try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition.
Madeleine L'Engle
#69. Inspiration more often comes during the work than before it, because the largest part of the job of an artist is to listen to the work.
Madeleine L'Engle
#70. I think we're supposed to ask too much of each other; otherwise, nothing would ever get done.
Madeleine L'Engle
#72. The virgin birth has never been a major stumbling block in my struggle with Christianity; it's far less mind boggling than the Power of all Creation stooping so low as to become one of us.
Madeleine L'Engle
#73. One foggy night I was walking the dogs down the lane and heard the geese, very close overhead, calling, calling, their marvellous strange cry, as they flew by. I think that is what our own best prayer must sound like when we send it up to heaven.
Madeleine L'Engle
#76. We are all broken, we human creatures, and to pretend we're not is to inhibit healing.
Madeleine L'Engle
#77. Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
Madeleine L'Engle
#78. One reason nearly half my books are for children is the glorious fact that the minds of children are still open to the living word; in the child, nightside and sunside are not yet separated; fantasy contains truths which cannot be stated in terms of proof.
Madeleine L'Engle
#79. Life ... is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.
Madeleine L'Engle
#80. In art we are once again able to do all the things we have forgotten; we are able to walk on water; we speak to the angels who call us; we move, unfettered, among the stars.
Madeleine L'Engle
#81. One of the most helpful tools a writer has is his journals. Whenever someone asks how to become an author, I suggest keeping a journal.
Madeleine L'Engle
#82. I am slowly coming to understand with all my heart as well as my head that love is not a feeling. It is a person.
Madeleine L'Engle
#83. All will be redeemed in God's fullness of time, all, not just the small portion of the population who have been given the grace to know and accept Christ. All the strayed and stolen sheep. All the little lost ones.
Madeleine L'Engle
#84. It does not matter that we cannot fathom this mystery. The only real problem comes when we think that we have.
Madeleine L'Engle
#85. The deeper and richer a personality is, the more full it is of paradox and contradiction. It is only a shallow character who offers us no problems of contrast.
Madeleine L'Engle
#87. Maybe the theatre isn't any place for a reasonable human being after all. It keeps your emotions in such a constant state of upheaval. It's really terribly wearing. I wonder if I could stand it, one emotional upset after the other just going on and on for the rest of my life.
Madeleine L'Engle
#88. When I have something to say that I think will be too difficult for adults, I write it in a book for children. Children are excited by new ideas; they have not yet closed the doors and windows of their imaginations. Provided the story is good ... nothing is too difficult for children.
Madeleine L'Engle
#89. The degree of talent, the size of the gift, is immaterial. All artists must listen, but not all hear great symphonies, see wide canvasses, conceive complex, character-filled novels. No
matter, the creative act is the same, and it is an act of faith.
Madeleine L'Engle
#91. You are given the form, but you must write the sonnet for yourself.
Madeleine L'Engle
#92. The truth is that I hate to think about other people reading my books," Miranda said. "It's like watching someone go through the box of private stuff that I keep under my bed.
Madeleine L'Engle
#93. You don't know the meaning of moderation, do you, my darling? A happy medium is something I wonder if you'll ever learn.
Madeleine L'Engle
#94. An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.
Madeleine L'Engle
#95. Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do. I've never had a feeling in my life. As a matter of fact, I matter only with earth people.
Madeleine L'Engle
#96. Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith. Faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.
Madeleine L'Engle
#98. Prayer was never meant to be magic,' Mother said.
'Then why bother with it?' Suzy scowled.
'Because it's an act of love,' Mother said.
Madeleine L'Engle
#100. Pray all you like, ask anything you want, but don't forget that he never promised he'd say yes. He never guaranteed us anything. Not anything at all. Except one thing. Just one thing ...
That he cares ... That is all. Nothing else.
Madeleine L'Engle
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