Inspiration more often comes during the work than before it, because the largest part of the job of an artist is to listen to the work.

You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? Yes. Mrs. Whatsit said. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

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.

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

You're going to get hurt yourself, and badly, if you take everything so hard.

If she could give love to IT perhaps it would shrivel up and die, for she was sure that IT could not withstand love.

Death is contagious; it is contracted the moment we are conceived.