Madeleine L'Engle

If I do wrong, I may do it unwittingly, thinking I am doing something for the best; but if it turns out to be wrong, I have done it, and I must bear the responsibility. It is not somebody else__ or something else__ fault. If it is I am less than human. Like everybody else, I tend to rationalize and alibi, before I let myself admit, __es, I did this. I am sorry. I will do what I can to make reparation._ Our sins defeat us unless we are willing to recognize them, confess them, and become healed and whole and holy__ot qualified, mind you; just holy.

Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together we become a new creature. To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take_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_It takes a lifetime to learn another person_When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected.

In my dreams, I never have an age.

People are more than just the way they look.

Who makes you least confused?""Calvin" There was no hesitation here. "When I'm with Calvin, I don't mind being me""You mean he makes you more you, don't you?""I guess you could put it that way.

Mr Jenkins. Unique, as every star in the sky is unique, every leaf on every tree, every snowflake, every farandola, every cherubim, unique: Named.

A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.

A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.

But there is something about Time. The sun rises and sets. The stars swing slowly across the sky and fade. Clouds fill with rain and snow, empty themselves, and fill again. The moon is born, and dies, and is reborn. Around millions of clocks swing hour hands, and minute hands, and second hands. Around goes the continual circle of the notes of the scale. Around goes the circle of night and day, the circle of weeks forever revolving, and of months, and of years.

People are afraid of knowledge that is not yet theirs.

We all tend to make zealous judgments and thereby close ourselves off from revelation. If we feel that we already know something in its totality, then we fail to keep our ears and eyes open to that which may expand or even changes that which we so zealously think we know.

Qui plussait, plus se tait. French, you know. The more a man knows, the less he talks.

When the bright angel dominates, out comes a great work of art, a Michelangelo David or a Beethoven symphony.

In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come.

Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are.

Is it that bad, Mrs. Bowen?" Clement asked.Emily shook her head. "Gertrude's been hurt and so she's generalizing. It's a pretty good country on the whole, and the people in it, too. We have our faults and they may be glaring, and we have individuals we may not be proud of, but take us by and large we'll stick our necks our for something we believe in, and that in itself may be a fault, but it's one I like.""Bravo," Abe said.

We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.

Because you're not what I would have you be I blind myself to who in truth you are.