Quotes by Madeleine L'Engle

Lords of blue and Lords of gold,Lords of wind and waters wild,Lords of time thats growing old,When will come the season mild?When will come blue Madocs child?

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

And it came to me as I stood on the desert sand, looking at the Great Pyramid, that what any civilization says about God tells us more about that civilization than it does about God.

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

We cannot always cry at the right timeand who is to say which time is right?

We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means that 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 considerable virtues and thanked God that he was not like other men.

Some of these questions dont have finite answers, but the questions themselves are important. Dont stop asking, and dont let anybody tell you the questions arent worth it. They are.

Questions are disturbing, especially those which may threaten our traditions, our institutions, our security. But questions never threaten the living God, who is constantly calling us, and who affirms for us that love is stronger than hate, blessings stronger than cursing.

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

Right now I am like the unborn baby in the womb, knowing nothing except the comforting warmth of the amniotic fluid in which I swim, the comforting nourishment entering my body from a source I cannot see or understand. My whole being comes from an unseen, unknown nurturer. By that nurturer I am totally loved and protected, and that love is forever. It does not end when I am precipitated out of the safe waters of the womb into the unsafe world. It will. It end when I breathe my last, mortal breath. That love manifested itself joyously in the creation of the universe, became particular for us in Jesus, and will show itself most gloriously in the Second Coming. We need not fear.

When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening.

but BEing time is never wasted time. When we are BEing, not only are we collaborating with chronological time, but we are touching on kairos, and are freed from the normal restrictions of time.

If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.

There’s no such thing as an unbreakable scientific rule, because, sooner or later, they all seem to get broken. Or to change.

There is nothing that makes me happier than sitting around the dinner table and talking until the candles are burned down.

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

We cant take any credit for our talents. Its how we use them that counts.

Is it that bad, Mrs. Bowen? Clement asked.Emily shook her head. Gertrudes been hurt and so shes generalizing. Its a pretty good country on the whole, and the people in it, too. We have our faults and they may be glaring, and we have individuals we may not be proud of, but take us by and large well stick our necks our for something we believe in, and that in itself may be a fault, but its one I like.Bravo, Abe said.

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

In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come.