Madeleine L'Engle: We tend to defend vigorously things that in our dee...

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

When I start a new seminar I tell my students that I will undoubtedly contradict myself, and that I will mean both things. But an acceptance of contradiction is no excuse for fuzzy thinking. We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledge that they cannot take use all the way.

Madeleine L'Engle

acceptance mean thinking

Vitam impendere vero. To stake one's life for the truth.

Madeleine L'Engle

stakes

Das Werk lobt den Meister. (German: The work proves the craftsman.)

Madeleine L'Engle

dens craftsman prove

As paredes tem ouvidos. (Portuguese: The walls have ears.)

Madeleine L'Engle

walls-have-ears wall ears

For that moment, at least, all our doors and windows were wide open; we were not carefully shutting out God's purifying light, in order to feel safe and secure; we were bathed in the same light that burned and yet did not consume the bush. We walked barefoot on holy ground.

Madeleine L'Engle

holy-ground light doors

The prayer of words cannot be eliminated. And I must pray them daily, whether I feel like praying or not. Otherwise, when God as something to say to me, I will not know how to listen. Until I have worked through self, I will not be enabled to get out of the way.

Madeleine L'Engle

self prayer way

Holiness ... is nothing we can do ... It is gift, sheer gift, waiting there to be recognized and received. We do not have to be qualified to be holy. We do not have to be qualified to be whole, or healed.Made

Madeleine L'Engle

holiness holy waiting

In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet…There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter…And each line has to end with a rigid pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet…But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants…You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

Madeleine L'Engle

lines writing believe

Have you ever tried to get to your feet with a sprained dignity?

Madeleine L'Engle

wrinkle-in-time dignity feet

I like the fact that in ancient Chinese art the great painters always included a deliberate flaw in their work: human creation is never perfect.

Madeleine L'Engle

creativity perfect art

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

Madeleine L'Engle

explanation able humans

A book comes and says, 'Write me.' My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate.

Madeleine L'Engle

teamwork jobs book

Almost all the joyful things of life are outside the measure of IQ tests.

Madeleine L'Engle

joyful tests

We human beings grow through our failures, not our virtues.

Madeleine L'Engle

virtue grows humans

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

eye dream father

To grow up is to find the small part you are playing in the extraordinary drama written by somebody else.

Madeleine L'Engle

growing-up grows drama

If our lives are truly "hid with Christ in God," the astounding thing is that this hiddenness is revealed in all that we do and say and write. What we are is going to be visible in our art, no matter how secular (on the surface) the subject may be.

Madeleine L'Engle

writing may art

If it's not good enough for adults, it's not good enough for children. If a book that is going to be marketed for children does not interest me, a grownup, then I am dishonoring the children for whom the book is intended, and I am dishonoring books. And words.

Madeleine L'Engle

not-good-enough book children

Compassion is nothing one feels with the intellect alone. Compassion is particular; it is never general.

Madeleine L'Engle

intellect compassion feels

We tend to defend vigorously things that in our deepest hearts we are not quite certain about. If we are certain of something we know, it doesn't need defending.