In reading we must become creators. Once the child has learned to read alone, and can pick up a book without illustrations, he must become a creator, imagining the setting of the story, visualizing the characters, seeing facial expressions, hearing the inflection of voices. The author and the reader "know" each other; they meet on the bridge of words.
Madeleine L'EngleMy husband is my most ruthless critic... sometimes he will say, 'It's been said better before.' Of course it has. It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.
Madeleine L'EngleDarkness was and darkness was good. As with light. Light and Darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being, in joyful rhythm.
Madeleine L'EngleIn your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnetโฆThere are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. Thatโs a very strict rhythm or meterโฆAnd each line has to end with a rigid pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnetโฆBut within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wantsโฆYouโre given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.
Madeleine L'Engle