Quotes by Madeleine L'Engle

The creative impulse can be killed, but it cannot be taught...What a teacher can do...in working with children, is to give the flame enough oxygen so that it can burn. As far as Im concerned, this providing of oxygen is one of the noblest of all vocations.

Believing takes practice.

Pray all you like, ask anything you want, but don’t forget that he never promised he’d say yes. He never guaranteed us anything. Not anything at all. Except one thing. Just one thing . . . . That he cares . . . That is all. Nothing else.

But I am a storyteller, and that involves language, for me the English language, that wonderfully rich, complex, and ofttimes confusing tongue. When language is limited, I am thereby diminished, too.

Story always tells us more than the mere words, and that is why we love to write it, and to read it.

Prayer was never meant to be magic, Mother said.Then why bother with it? Suzy scowled.Because its an act of love, Mother said.

One foggy night I was walking the dogs down the lane and heard the geese, very close overhead, calling, calling, their marvellous strange cry, as they flew by. I think that is what our own best prayer must sound like when we send it up to heaven.

Life is not easy and comfortable, with nothing ever going wrong as long as you buy the right product. Its not true that if you have the right insurance everything is going to be fine. Thats not what its really like. Terrible things happen. And those are the things we learn from.

If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.

Human beings are the only creatures who are allowed to fail. If an ant fails, its dead. But were allowed to learn from our mistakes and from our failures. And thats how I learn, by falling flat on my face and picking myself up and starting all over again.

Lords of melody and song,Lords of roses burning bright,Blue will right the ancient wrong,Though the way is dark and long,Blue will shine with loving light.

We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.

And were not alone, you know, children, came Mrs. Whatsit, the comforter. All through the universe, its being fought, all through the cosmos, and my, but its a grand and exciting battle. I know its hard for you to understand about size, how theres very little difference in the size of the tiniest microbe and the greatest galaxy. You think about that, and maybe it wont seem strange to you that some of our very best fighters have come right from your own planet, and its a little planet, dears, out on the edge of a little galaxy. You can be proud that its done so well.Who have our fighters been? Calvin asked.Oh, you must know them, dear, Mrs. Whatsit said. Mrs. Whos spectacles shone out at them triumphantly. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. Jesus! Charles Wallace said. Why of course, Jesus!Of course! Mrs. Whatsit said. Go on, Charles, love. There were others. All your great artists. Theyve been lights for us to see by.

There was no light. The darkness was deep and there was no dazzle.

... Papas always had the ability to remember the good things and let the bad ones go. Not a bad ability.... Im not sure. I think we have to remember it all before we can forgive it.

This wasnt the first time that Id come close to death, but it was the first time Id been involved in this part of it, this strange, terrible saying goodbye to someone youve loved.

And we mustnt lose our sense of humor, Mrs. Which said. The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly.

Goodbyes are not easy, but Im ready to move on. Im not reluctant, Emma, not holding back. I dont have answers to the questions, but I have some good questions. I have loved life, but I believe that life is to be loved, it is a gift.

It is ... through the world of the imagination which takes us beyond the restrictions of provable fact, that we touch the hem of truth.

Ridicule is a terrible witherer of the flower of imagination. It binds us where we should be free.