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. Madeleine L'Engle More Quotes by Madeleine L'Engle More Quotes From Madeleine L'Engle if a book is not good enough for a grownup, it is not good enough for a child. Madeleine L'Engle not-good-enough book children The concentration of a small child at play is analogous to the concentration of the artist of any discipline. In real play, which is real concentration, the child is not only outside time, he is outside himself. Madeleine L'Engle artist real children All real art is, in its true sense, religious; it is a religious impulse; there is no such thing as a non-religious subject. But much bad or downright sacrilegious art depicts so-called religious subjects. Madeleine L'Engle real religious art I have a point of view. You have a point of view. God has view. Madeleine L'Engle point-of-view views If you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. Madeleine L'Engle want writing thinking To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle vulnerable alive The deeper and richer a personality is, the more full it is of paradox and contradiction. It is only a shallow character who offers us no problems of contrast. Madeleine L'Engle problem personality character An artist is someone who cannot rest, who can never rest as long as there is one suffering creature in the world. Madeleine L'Engle artist suffering long life is the greatest gift that could ever be conceived ... A daffodil pushing up through the dark earth to the spring, knowing somehow deep in its roots that spring and light and sunshine will come, has more courage and more knowledge of the value of life than any human being I've met. Madeleine L'Engle sunshine spring life You cannot take credit for your talents. It is what you do with them that counts. Madeleine L'Engle credit talent I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one, and forty-five and . . . and . . . and . . . Madeleine L'Engle twelve three twenties The primary needs can be filled without language. We can eat, sleep, make love, build a house, bear children, without language. But we cannot ask questions. We cannot ask, 'Who am I? Who are you? Why? Madeleine L'Engle house sleep children One of the many sad results of the Industrial Revolution was that we came to depend more than ever on the intellect, and to ignore the intuition with its symbolic thinking. Madeleine L'Engle intuition revolution thinking Inspiration does not always precede the act of writing; it often follows it. Madeleine L'Engle inspiration doe writing A life lived in chaos is an impossibility for the artist. No matter how unstructured may seem the painter's garret in Paris or the poet's pad in Greenwich Village, the artist must have some kind of order or he will proudce a very small body of work. To create a work of art, great or small, is work, hard work, and work requires discipline and order. Madeleine L'Engle paris hard-work art Thou cannot harm a butterfly, without troubling a star. Madeleine L'Engle butterfly harm stars 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 dies ifs giving It's hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we're left with a fistful of ashes. Madeleine L'Engle ashes letting-go world It is possible to suffer and despair an entire lifetime and still not give up the art of laughter. Madeleine L'Engle laughter giving-up art anything that stretches the mind is a help to the potential author. Madeleine L'Engle mind helping
