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'EngleFor the things that are seen are temporal, but things that are unseen are eternal.
Madeleine L'EngleCompassion is nothing one feels with the intellect alone. Compassion is particular; it is never general.
Madeleine L'EngleWhen we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.
Madeleine L'EngleIn 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