Madeleine L'Engle Quotes

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.

Agape love is...profound concern for the well-being of another, without any desire to control that other, to be thanked by that other, or to enjoy the process.

When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.

A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.

Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surrounds us or we light a candle to see by.

It was a dark and stormy night.

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.

Because we fail to listen to each other's stories, we are becoming a fragmented human race.

If we are not willing to fail we will never accomplish anything. All creative acts involve the risk of failure.

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.

I hope that I will never forget the salvific power of joyful laughter.

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

A long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship. It is certainly not that passion disappears, but that it is conjoined with other ways of love.

God promised to make you free. He never promised to make you independent.

To pray is to listen, to move through my own chattering to God, to that place where I can be silent and listen to what God may have to say.

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.

... nothing loved is ever lost or perished.

The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys.

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.

Our story is never written in isolation. We do not act in a one-man play. We can do nothing that does not affect other people, no matter how loudly we say, "It's my own business.

For the things that are seen are temporal, but things that are unseen are eternal.

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.

There are times when I feel that he has withdrawn from me, and I have often given him cause, but Easter is always the answer to My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!

That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along.

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.

Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.

Only Christ can free us from the prison of legalism, and then only if we are willing to be freed.

Nothing, no one, is too small to matter. What you do is going to make a difference.

I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be.

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

Meg, when people don't know who they are, they are open either to being Xed, or Named

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

To grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable.

Easter is always the answer to "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!"

Man is; it matters to him; this is terrifying unless it matters to God, too, because this is the only possible reason we can matter to ourselves.

Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.

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

I suspect that in every good marriage there are times when love seems to be over.

I like the fact that in ancient Chinese art the great painters always included a deliberate flaw in their work: human creation is never perfect.

But unless we are creators, we are not fully alive.

A mystic is a person who sees the facts as inadequate.

A good laugh heals a lot of hurts.

Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are.

Truth is eternal. Knowledge is changeable. It is disastrous to confuse them.

Our country in general assumes that "the pursuit of happiness" really means "the pursuit of pleasure" and that therefore pleasure is the greatest good.

Remember the root word of humble and human is the same: humus: earth. We are dust. We are created; it is God who made us and not we ourselves. But we were made to be co-creators with our maker.

We have much to be judged on when he comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness and the result of our failures in love.

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.

Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.