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

When we are writing or painting or composing, we are, during the time of creativity, freed from normal restrictions and opened to a wider world, where colors are brighter, sounds clearer, and people more wondrously complex than we normally realize.

— Madeleine L'Engle

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.

— Madeleine L'Engle

Why are we so afraid of silence? Teenagers cannot study without their records; they walk along the street with their transistors. Grownups are as bad if not worse; we turn on the TV or the radio the minute we come into the house or start the car. The pollution of noise in our cities is as destructive as the pollution of air. We show our fear of silence in our conversation: I wonder if the orally-minded Elizabethan's used "um" and "er" the way we do? And increasingly prevalent is what my husband calls an articulated pause: "You know." We interject "you know" meaninglessly into every sentence, in order that the flow of our speech should not be interrupted by such a terrifying thing as silence.

— Madeleine L'Engle

Why does anybody do anything?" Mimi asked impatiently. "Most of the time we don't know--any of us.

— Madeleine L'Engle

Women in Jesus' day were less than second-class citizens.

— Madeleine L'Engle

You cannot see the past that did not happen any more than you can foresee the future.

— Madeleine L'Engle

You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father.

— Madeleine L'Engle

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

— Madeleine L'Engle

Your intuition and your intellect should be working together… making love. That’s how it works best.

— Madeleine L'Engle