Quotes from Madeleine L'Engle

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.

Lords of spirit, Lords of breath, Lords of fireflies, stars, and light, Who will keep the world from death?Who will stop the coming night?Blue eyes, blue eyes, have the sight.

A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.

A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit

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.

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.

Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.

Just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist.

I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.

Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.