I cannot believe that God wants punishment to go on interminably any more than does a loving parent. The entire purpose of loving punishment is to teach, and it lasts only as long as is Madeleine L'Engle More Quotes by Madeleine L'Engle More Quotes From Madeleine L'Engle The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions. Madeleine L'Engle deep-thought answers thinking I saw Eternity the other night, Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright, And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years, Driven by the spheres, Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world And all her train were hurled. Madeleine L'Engle light time night We don't want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have been opened to us. We don't want to close a book with a sense that life is totally unfair and that there is no light in the darkness; we want to feel that we have been given illumination. Madeleine L'Engle illumination light book We think because we have words, not the other way around. The more words we have, the better able we are to think conceptually. Madeleine L'Engle able way thinking There is in God, some say, a deep but dazzling darkness. Madeleine L'Engle dazzling darkness I am not some kind of computer. Only machines have glib answers for everything. Madeleine L'Engle machines kind answers My husband is my most ruthless critic... sometimes he will say, 'It's been said better before.' Of course it has. It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die. Madeleine L'Engle musical husband trying Only a fool is not afraid. Madeleine L'Engle not-afraid fool My lovely shining fragile broken house is filled with flowers and founded on a rock. Madeleine L'Engle rocks flower religious 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 space lonely earth Their love was a bright flower, youthful and radiantly beautiful. Madeleine L'Engle flower beautiful But where, after we have made the great decision to leave the security of childhood and move on into the vastness of maturity, does anybody ever feel completely at home? Madeleine L'Engle maturity home moving the discoveries don't come when you're looking for them. They come when for some reason you've let go conscious control. Madeleine L'Engle reason letting-go discovery And joy is always a promise. Madeleine L'Engle joy promise I don't know if they're really like everybody else, or if they're able to pretend they are. Madeleine L'Engle wrinkle-in-time able knows I knew that the moment I started worrying about whether or not I was good enough for the job, I wouldn't be able to do it. Madeleine L'Engle able worry jobs Life is not easy and comfortable, with nothing ever going wrong as long as you buy the right product. It's not true that if you have the right insurance everything is going to be fine. That's not what it's really like. Terrible things happen. And those are the things we learn from. Madeleine L'Engle life-is easy long In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.' I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn't done deliberately. Madeleine L'Engle writing character believe Growing up is a process that never ends. It isn't a point you attain so you can say, Hooray, I'm grown up. Some people never grow up. And nobody ever finishes growing. Or shouldn't. If you stop you might as well quit. What I have to tell you is that it never gets any easier. It goes right on being rough forever. But nothing that's easy is worth anything. You ought to have learned that by now. What happens as you keep on growing is that all of a sudden you realize that it's more exciting and beautiful than scary and awful. Madeleine L'Engle growing-up beautiful people It does not matter that we cannot fathom this mystery. The only real problem comes when we think that we have. Madeleine L'Engle real doe thinking
