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’re all a grab bag of good and eveil, and by and large can’t tell which is which

Madeleine L'Engle

Because to take away a man's freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.

Madeleine L'Engle

Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.

Madeleine L'Engle

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.

Madeleine L'Engle

My lovely shining fragile broken house is filled with flowers and founded on a rock.

Madeleine L'Engle

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'...I am grateful that Jesus cried out those words, because it means that I need never fear to cry them out myself. I need never fear, nor feel any sense of guilt, during the inevitable moments of forsakenness...

Madeleine L'Engle

Your intuition and your intellect should be working together… making love. That’s how it works best.

Madeleine L'Engle

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

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

Madeleine L'Engle

We think because we have words, not the other way around. The more words we have, the better able we are to think conceptually.

Madeleine L'Engle

Life is not easy and comfortable, with nothing ever going wrong as long as you buy the right product. It's not true that if you have the right insurance everything is going to be fine. That's not what it's really like. Terrible things happen. And tho...

Madeleine L'Engle

Of course. I am well aware that the streets of New York are not safe, but then there is no longer any place in the world which is safe. One cannot live in perpetual fear, one has to be as prudent as possible, and get on with life. - A Severed Wasp

Madeleine L'Engle

Being alive hurts. I have found it best not to rush for the aspirin bottle. - A Severed Wasp

Madeleine L'Engle

I do not think that I will ever reach a stage when I will say, "This is what I believe. Finished." What I believe is alive ... and open to growth

Madeleine L'Engle

It takes too much energy to be against something unless it's really important.

Madeleine L'Engle

No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I've been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashin...

Madeleine L'Engle

A love which depends solely on romance, on the combustion of two attracting chemistries, tends to fizzle out. The famous lovers usually end up dead. A long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship. ...

Madeleine L'Engle

I suspect that in every good marriage there are times when love seems to be over. Sometimes these desert lines are simply the only way to the next oasis, which is far more lush and beautiful after the desert crossing than it could possibly have been ...

Madeleine L'Engle

The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain.

Madeleine L'Engle

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

Madeleine L'Engle

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

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