Madeleine L'Engle Quotes

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.

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, no one, is too small to matter. What you do is going to make a difference.

It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.

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.

God understands. And God understands that part of us which is more than we think we are.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

If it can be verified, we don't need faith... Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.

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

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

If you're going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can't pick and choose who's going to be the sparrow. It's everybody.

Time exists so that everything doesn't happen at once.

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

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

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

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

I wish that we worried more about asking the right questions instead of being so hung up on finding answers.

Man has a viewpoint, but God has the view.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

We do not love each other without changing each other.

To be a witness means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.