Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time (1962)

36 Sourced Quotes

View all Madeleine L'Engle Quotes
We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.

Madeleine L'Engle
If she could give love to IT perhaps it would shrivel up and die, for she was sure that IT could not withstand love.

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

Madeleine L'Engle
They are very young. And on their earth, as they call it, they never communicate with other planets. They revolve about all alone in space." "Oh," the thin beast said. "Aren't they lonely?

Madeleine L'Engle
I don't know if they're really like everybody else, or if they're able to pretend they are.

Madeleine L'Engle
Oh child, your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the affect of extreme complication. -Aunt Beast

Madeleine L'Engle
Silence fell between them, as tangible as the dark tree shadows that fell across their laps and that now seemed to rest upon them as heavily as though they possessed a measurable weight of their own.

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

Madeleine L'Engle
Meg, I give you your faults." "My faults!" Meg cried. "Your faults." "But I'm always trying to get rid of my faults!" "Yes," Mrs. Whatsit said. "However, I think you'll find they'll come in very handy on Camazotz.

Madeleine L'Engle
Meg, don't you think you'd make a better adjustment to life if you faced facts?" I do face facts," Meg said. They're lots easier to face than people, I can tell you.

Madeleine L'Engle
We look not at the things which are what you would call seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things that are not seen are eternal.

Madeleine L'Engle
You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father.

Madeleine L'Engle
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

Madeleine L'Engle
Suddenly there was a great burst of light through the Darkness. The light spread out and where it touched the Darkness the Darkness disappeared. The light spread until the patch of Dark Thing had vanished, and there was only a gentle shining, and through the shining came the stars, clear and pure.

Madeleine L'Engle
Hate was nothing that IT didn't have. IT knew all about hate.

Madeleine L'Engle
You don't know the meaning of moderation, do you, my darling? A happy medium is something I wonder if you'll ever learn.

Madeleine L'Engle
A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.

Madeleine L'Engle
Well, the fifth dimension's a tesseract. You add that to the other four dimensions and you can travel through space without having to go the long way round.

Madeleine L'Engle
Like and equal are two entirely different things

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, I matter only with earth people.

Madeleine L'Engle
Thinking I'm a moron gives people something to feel smug about," Charles Wallace said. "Why should I disillusion them?

Madeleine L'Engle
Calvin said, "Do you know that this is the first time I've seen you without your glasses?" "I'm blind as a bat without them. I'm near-sighted, like father." "Well, you know what, you've got dream-boat eyes," Calvin said. "Listen, you go right on wearing your glasses. I don't think I want anybody else to see what gorgeous eyes you have.

Madeleine L'Engle
I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be.

Madeleine L'Engle
Have you ever tried to get to your feet with a sprained dignity?

Madeleine L'Engle
It seemed to travel with her, to sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too, felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real.

Madeleine L'Engle
Speaking of ways, pet, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.

Madeleine L'Engle
We know you have a great mind and all, Mother, but you don't have much sense.

Madeleine L'Engle
With our human limitations we're not always able to understand the explanations.

Madeleine L'Engle
As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers

Madeleine L'Engle
Yes, it was to her faults that she turned to save herself now.

Madeleine L'Engle