Madeleine L'Engle Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“But grief still has to be worked through. It is like walking through water. Sometimes there are little waves lapping about my feet. Sometimes there is an enormous breaker that knocks me down. Sometimes there is a sudden and fierce squall. But I know that many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God's love, a love we don't even have to earn.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
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“If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
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“Because we fail to listen to each other's stories, we are becoming a fragmented human race.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surrounds us or we light a candle to see by.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“The world has been abnormal for so long that we've forgotten what it's like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
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“Nothing, no one, is too small to matter. What you do is going to make a difference.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle#Differences Quotes #Making A Difference Quotes #Matter Quotes
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“In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“If it can be verified, we don't need faith... Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“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.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
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“If we are not willing to fail we will never accomplish anything. All creative acts involve the risk of failure.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“When I look at the galaxies on a clear night - when I look at the incredible brilliance of creation, and think that this is what God is like, then instead of feeling intimidated and diminished by it, I am enlarged . . . I rejoice that I am a part of it.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
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“A long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship. It is certainly not that passion disappears, but that it is conjoined with other ways of love.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“To pray is to listen, to move through my own chattering to God, to that place where I can be silent and listen to what God may have to say.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“God is over all things, under all things; outside all; within, but not enclosed; without, but not excluded; above, but not raised up; below; but not depressed; wholly above, presiding; wholly without, embracing; wholly within, filling.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly than he knew, Rembrandt's brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend. When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
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“Agape love is...profound concern for the well-being of another, without any desire to control that other, to be thanked by that other, or to enjoy the process.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“My writing knows more than I know. What a writer must do is listen to her book. It might take you where you don’t expect to go. That’s what happens when you write stories. You listen and you say ‘a ha,’ and you write it down. A lot of it is not planned, not conscious; it happens while you’re doing it. You know more about it after you’re done.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“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 -
“Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
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“Creativity comes from accepting that you're not safe, from being absolutely aware, and from letting go of control. It's a matter of seeing everything - even when you want to shut your eyes.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle -
“The journey homewards. Coming home. That's what it's all about. The journey to the coming of the Kingdom. That's probably the chief difference between the Christian and the secular artist--the purpose of the work, be it story or music or painting, is to further the coming of the kingdom, to make us aware of our status as children of God, and to turn our feet toward home.”
-- Madeleine L'Engle
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