Madeleine L'Engle

“The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.”

“Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.”

“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 it for children.”

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

“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.”

“Because we fail, we can be forgiven. It is our failures that make us human.”

“Like and love are two different things.”

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

“To be alive is to be vulnerable.”

“Some things have to be believed to be seen.”

“Hate is an awful waste of energy, and I'd rather use mine on loving people.”

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Believing takes practice.”

“I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child.”