Madeleine L'Engle

You learn to write by doing it.

— Madeleine L'Engle

“We are all strangers in a strange land.”

— Madeleine L'Engle

Be aware that rigidity imprisons.

— Madeleine L'Engle

“There's nothing left except to try.”

— Madeleine L'Engle

It was a dark and stormy night.

— Madeleine L'Engle

In my dreams, I never have an age.

— Madeleine L'Engle

My protagonists, male and female, are me.

— Madeleine L'Engle

To be alive is to be vulnerable.

— Madeleine L'Engle

We tend to think things are new because we've just discovered them.

— Madeleine L'Engle

If you aren't unhappy sometimes you don't know how to be happy.

— Madeleine L'Engle

“Like and equal are not the same thing at all.”

— Madeleine L'Engle

Thou cannot harm a butterfly, without troubling a star.

— Madeleine L'Engle

I do not believe that true optimism can come about except through tragedy.

— Madeleine L'Engle

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

— Madeleine L'Engle

“Nothing really important in life is in the realm of provable fact.”

— Madeleine L'Engle

“The refusal to love is the only unbearable thing.”

— Madeleine L'Engle

There is little character or loveliness in the face of someone who has shunned risk, avoided suffering and rejected life

— Madeleine L'Engle

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

— Madeleine L'Engle

“I would, quite often, like to be grownup, wise, and sophisticated. But these gifts are not mine.”

— Madeleine L'Engle

Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do. I've never had a feeling in my life. As a matter of fact,…

— Madeleine L'Engle

I have never lived before...Until this summer, I did not know what it was to be alive.

— Madeleine L'Engle

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

— Madeleine L'Engle

Detachment and involvement: the artist must have both. The link between them is compassion. It has taken me over fifty years to…

— Madeleine L'Engle

Accepting that we are angry is a healthy and appropriate response as long as we don't get stuck in it. Acknowledging it…

— Madeleine L'Engle

I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the…

— Madeleine L'Engle

If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may…

— Madeleine L'Engle

“Sorry. I get attacks of quotitis every once in a while. It's a very rare disease with no cure. It usually attacks…

— Madeleine L'Engle

When a promise is broken, the promise still remains. In one way or another, we are all unfaithful to each other, and…

— Madeleine L'Engle

I am convinced that each work of art, be it a great work of genius or something very small, has its own…

— Madeleine L'Engle

“Now wonder our youth is confused and in pain; they long for God, for the transcendent, and they are offered, far too…

— Madeleine L'Engle

“He knew what she wanted, and he wanted it, too; he was ready, but not, despite her gorgeousness, with Tiglah. Tiglah was…

— Madeleine L'Engle

“I can’t do it for love of God, like Tom Tallis, or for heaven’s sake, as Mr. Frost said. But because I…

— Madeleine L'Engle

“There are still stars which move in ordered and beautiful rhythm. There are still people in this world who keep promises. Even…

— Madeleine L'Engle

“One of the most pusillanimous things we of the female sex have done throughout the centuries is to have allowed the male…

— Madeleine L'Engle

If we all knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we's tend…

— Madeleine L'Engle

We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world. We've come to…

— Madeleine L'Engle

There are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us…

— Madeleine L'Engle

It's a very American trait, this wanting people to think well of us. It's a young want, and I am ashamed of…

— Madeleine L'Engle

“If God’s peace is in our hearts, we carry it with us, and it can be given to those around us, not…

— Madeleine L'Engle

“It's idiotic, it's crazy. If you die and then you're just nothing, there isn't any point to anything. Why do we live…

— Madeleine L'Engle