Quotes by Madeleine L'Engle

About Madeleine L'Engle:

Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer best known for young-adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels: A Wind in the Door, National Book Award-winning A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect both her Christian faith and her strong interest in modern science.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his...

Madeleine L'Engle

As long as we know what it's about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain.

Madeleine L'Engle

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.

Madeleine L'Engle

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

Madeleine L'Engle

to look at a work of art and then to make a judgement as to whether or not it is art, and whether or not it is Christian, is presumptuous.

Madeleine L'Engle

Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.

Madeleine L'Engle

As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.

Madeleine L'Engle

George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.

Madeleine L'Engle

In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept o...

Madeleine L'Engle

We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.

Madeleine L'Engle

Aeschylus writes, "In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grade of God.

Madeleine L'Engle

Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.

Madeleine L'Engle

We all tend to make zealous judgement, and thereby close ourselves off from revelation.

Madeleine L'Engle

I was at the annual meeting of a state library association a few years later, when the children were in the process of leaving the nest, and one of the librarians asked me, "What do you think you and Hugh have done which was the best for your childre...

Madeleine L'Engle

The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.

Madeleine L'Engle

We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.

Madeleine L'Engle

A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.

Madeleine L'Engle

Charles Wallace, the danger here is greatest for you." "Why?" "Because of what you are. Just exactly because of what you are you will be by far the most vulnerable. You must stay with Meg and Calvin. You must not go off on your own. Beware of pride a...

Madeleine L'Engle

Charles Wallace, the danger here is greatest for you." "Why?" "Because of what you are. Just exactly because of what you are you will be far the most vulnerable. You must stay with Meg and Calvin. You must not go off on your own. Beware of pride and ...

Madeleine L'Engle

She was silent; the great wings almost stopped moving; only a delicate stirring seemed to keep them aloft. "Listen, then," Mrs. Whatsit said. The resonant voice rose and the words seemed to be all around them so that Meg felt that she could almost re...

Madeleine L'Engle

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

Author Bio

  • NameMadeleine L'Engle
  • DescriptionAmerican writer
  • BornNovember 29, 1918
  • DiedSeptember 6, 2007
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Poet; Novelist; Children's Writer
  • AwardsMargaret Edwards Award; National Humanities Medal; Newbery Medal