Quotes from Madeleine L'Engle

all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.

Are you fighting the Black Thing?" Meg asked. "Oh, yes," Aunt Beast replied. "In doing that, we can never relax. We are called according to His purpose, and whom He calls, them He also justifies. Of course we have help, and without help it would be much more difficult.

Do you know how lucky you are?" She smiled rather wryly. "Not most of the time.

If we knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we'd tend not to notice the sunrise,or hear the birds, or the waves rolling into shore. We'd tend not to treasure our time with the people we love.

The refusal to love is the only unbearable thing.

Now the red eyes and the light above seemed to bore into Charles, and again the pupils fo the little boy's eyes contracted. When the final point of black was lost in blue he turned away from the red eyes, looked at Meg, and smiled sweetly, but the smile was not Charles Wallaces smile.

to look at a work of art and then to make a judgement as to whether or not it is art, and whether or not it is Christian, is presumptuous.

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Somehow or other, the loving parents had swallowed one of the Tempter's hooks, and the child was given total self-indulgence, which is far from free will. He still tempts. The ancient, primordial battle to destroy Community, to shatter Trinity, still continues. Creation still groans with the pain of it. Like it or not, we're caught in the middle.

Stories, no matter how simple, can be vehicles of truth; can be, in fact, icons. It's no coincidence that Jesus taught almost entirely by telling stories, simple stories dealing with the stuff of life familiar to the Jews of his day. Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.

It is the pattern throughout Creation. One child, one man, can swing the balance of the universe.

If the artist reflects only his own culture, then his works will die with that culture. But if his works reflect the eternal and universal, they will revive.