Madeleine L'Engle Quotes

Some of those soppy pictures of Jesus, looking like a tubercular, fair-haired, blue-eyed goy, are far more secular than a Picasso mother and child. The Lord Jesus who rules my life is not a sentimental, self-pitying weakling. he was a Jew, a carpenter, and strong. He took into his own heart, for our sakes, that pain which brings "wisdom through the awful grace of God."

I remember I turned on the light and stood in front of the mirror, looking at myself, frightened because people thought when they were getting ready for bed, and didn't think about me because I wasn't the most important thing in their lives at all.

There’s nothing the matter with his mind. He just does things in his own way and in his own time.

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.

Henneberger: If the Bible is not literally true, does that mean we don’t need to take it seriously?
L'Engle: Oh no, you do, because it’s truth, not fact, and you have to take truth seriously even when it expands beyond the facts.

It takes a lot of intellect to have faith, which is why so many people only have religiosity.... I'm against people taking the Bible absolutely literally, rather than letting some of it be real fantasy, like Jonah... Faith is best expressed in story.

I sometimes think God is a shit — and he wouldn't be worth it otherwise. He's much more interesting when he's a shit.

Alike and Equal are not the same.

You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

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

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