Reading is a creative activity. You have to visualize the characters, you have to hear what the voices sound like. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
Inspiration does not always precede the act of writing; it often follows it. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
The novelist helps us to see things we might not notice otherwise. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
'A Wrinkle in Time' was almost never published. You can't name a major publisher who didn't reject it. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
Just write a little bit every day. Even if it's for only half an hour — write, write, write. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“A book, too, can be a star 'explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly.” — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“Someone said, 'It's all been done before.' Yes, I agreed, but we all have to say it in our own voice.” — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
anything that stretches the mind is a help to the potential author. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“A book, too, can be a star, “explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,” a living fire to lighten the… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“Because of the very nature of the world as it is today, our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“One of the most helpful tools a writer has is his journals. Whenever someone asks how to become an author, I suggest… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
Stories have a richness that goes way beyond fact. My writing knows more than I know. What a writer must do is… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“Reading about the response of people in stories, plays, poems, helps us to respond more courageously and openly at our own moments… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
A great piece of literature does not try to coerce you to believe it or agree with it. A great piece of… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
If you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
It is all, as usual, paradox. I have to use what intellect I have in order to write books, but I write… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
We don't want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
When I have something to say that I think will be too difficult for adults, I write it in a book for… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
If I have something I want to say that is too difficult for adults to swallow, then I write it in a… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“We, and I think I'm speaking for many writers, don't know what it is that sometimes comes to make our books alive.… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
If it's not good enough for adults, it's not good enough for children. If a book that is going to be marketed… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
One reason nearly half my books are for children is the glorious fact that the minds of children are still open to… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“If I never had another book published, and it was very clear to me that this was a real possibility, I still… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“I have advice for people who want to write. I don't care whether they're 5 or 500. There are three things that… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“I heard a famous author say once that the hardest part of writing a book was making yourself sit down at the… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
If you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
if a book is not good enough for a grownup, it is not good enough for a child. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
I got so discouraged, I almost stopped writing. It was my 12-year-old son who changed my mind when he said to me,… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
During the long drag of years before our youngest child went to school, my love for my family and my need to… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
My writing knows more than I know. What a writer must do is listen to her book. It might take you where… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
“One of the hardest lessons I have to learn is how not to be judgmental about people who are judgmental. When I see how… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
Inspiration more often comes during the work than before it, because the largest part of the job of an artist is to listen to… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
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… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
Severe illness isolates those in close contact with it, because it inevitably narrows the focus of concern. To a certain extent this can lead… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
“Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.” — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
“Instead of rejoicing in this glorious “impossible” which gives meaning and dignity to our lives, we try to domesticate God, to make his mighty… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
I have never lived before...Until this summer, I did not know what it was to be alive. — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
“To love is to be vulnerable; and it is only in vulnerability and risk—not safety and security—that we overcome darkness.” — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
“IT was the most horrible, the most repellent thing she had ever seen, far more nauseating then anything she had ever imagined with her… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
I feel as though I'm not breathing when I'm out of his presence. He's the oxygen in my air, the sun in my universe,… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
Rather than feeling lost and unimportant and meaningless, set against galaxies which go beyond the reach of the furthest telescopes, I feel that my… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
My husband is my most ruthless critic... sometimes he will say, 'It's been said better before.' Of course it has. It's all been said… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share
