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20845d4
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She began to feel the sense of wonderful elation that always came to her when beauty took hold of her and made her forget her fears.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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344a36a
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Almost all the joyful things of life are outside the measure of IQ tests.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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a4a8262
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You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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e70cad3
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If we are not willing to fail we will never accomplish anything. All creative acts involve the risk of failure.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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5df7f16
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I would like to travel light on this journey of life, to get rid of the encumbrances I acquire each day.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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180613e
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There are still stars which move in ordered and beautiful rhythm. There are still people in this world who keep promises. Even little ones, like your cooking stew over your Bunsen burner. You may be in the middle of an experiment, but you still remember to feed your family. That's enough to keep my heart optimistic, no matter how pessimistic my mind. And you and I have good enough minds to know how very limited and finite they really are. T..
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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ee9982c
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If you're too happy about anything, fate usually gives you a good sock in the jaw and knocks you down.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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ec883ae
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I am not some kind of computer. Only machines have glib answers for everything.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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14c4b99
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To love is to be vulnerable; and it is only in vulnerability and risk--not safety and security--that we overcome darkness.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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8998890
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Aeschylus writes, "In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
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suffering
wisdom
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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9358531
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Behind the violence of the birthing of galaxies and stars and planets came a quiet and tender melody, a gentle love song. All the raging of creation, the continuing hydrogen explosions on the countless suns, the heaving of planetary bodies, all was enfolded in a patient, waiting love.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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029c3c0
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The images were gone, but Calvin was there, was with her, was part of her. She had moved beyond knowing him in sensory images to that place which is beyond images. Now she was kything Calvin, not red hair, or freckles, or eager blue eyes, or the glowing smile; nor was she hearing the deep voice with the occasional treble cracking; not any of this, but - Calvin. She was with Calvin, kything with every atom of her being, returning to him all..
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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9e57bbf
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If thou could'st empty all thyself of self Like to a shell dishabited Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf And say This is not dead and fill thee with Himself instead. But thou art all replete with very thou And hast such shrewd activity That when He comes He says This is enow Unto itself - 'twere better let it be It is so small and full there is no room for me.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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3317661
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The prayer of words cannot be eliminated. And I must pray them daily, whether I feel like praying or not. Otherwise, when God as something to say to me, I will not know how to listen. Until I have worked through self, I will not be enabled to get out of the way.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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d4ce5b1
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And joy is always a promise.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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a70f48b
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But she finds it so difficult to verbalize, Charles dear. It helps her if she can quote instead of working out words of her own.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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b763c2f
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There's nothing the matter with his mind. He just does things in his own way and in his own time.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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a633edf
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An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers...To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy...If I try self consciously to become a person, I will never be one. The most real people, those who are able to forget their selfish selves, who have true compassion, are usually the most distinct individuals
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philosophy-of-life
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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d48ea67
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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.
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literature
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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a9a6099
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It's a very American trait, this wanting people to think well of us. It's a young want, and I am ashamed of it in myself. I am not always a good daughter, even though my lacks are in areas different from her complaints. Haven't I learned yet that the desire to be perfect is always disastrous and, at the least, loses me in the mire of false guilt?
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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99c5cf8
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For that moment, at least, all our doors and windows were wide open; we were not carefully shutting out God's purifying light, in order to feel safe and secure; we were bathed in the same light that burned and yet did not consume the bush. We walked barefoot on holy ground.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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bf162ec
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Now wonder our youth is confused and in pain; they long for God, for the transcendent, and they are offered, far too often, either piosity or sociology, neither of which meets their needs, and they are introduced to churches which have become buildings that are a safe place to go to escape the awful demands of God.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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e5cfa0a
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Meg, when people don't know who they are, they are open either to being Xed, or Named
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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143b041
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As paredes tem ouvidos. (Portuguese: The walls have ears.)
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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a650049
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but BEing time is never wasted time. When we are BEing, not only are we collaborating with chronological time, but we are touching on kairos, and are freed from the normal restrictions of time.
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time
chronos
kairos
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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64ccbd2
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I used to feel guilty about spending morning hours working on a book; about fleeing to the brook in the afternoon. It took several summers of being totally frazzled by September to make me realize that this was a false guilt. I'm much more use to family and friends when I'm not physically and spiritually depleted than when I spend my energies as though they were unlimited. They are not. The time at the typewriter and the time at the brook r..
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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d637741
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You cannot see the past that did not happen any more than you can foresee the future.
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past
regret
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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53aec1a
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A burst of harmony so brilliant that it almost overwhelmed them surrounded Meg, the cherubim, Calvin, and Mr. Jenkins. But after a moment of breathlessness, Meg was able to open herself to the song of the farae, these strange creatures who were Deepened, rooted, yet never seperated from each other, no matter how great the distance. We are the song of the universe. We sing with the angelic host. We are musicians. The farae and the stars are ..
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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d2a32f4
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But if I knew everything, there would be no wonder, because what I believe in is far more than I know.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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6536943
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I feel as though I'm not breathing when I'm out of his presence. He's the oxygen in my air, the sun in my universe, the staff of my life. --Jane Gardiner
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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732aa5d
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If we accept that we have at least an iota of free will, we cannot throw it back the moment things go wrong. Like a human parent, God will help us when we ask for help, but in a way that will make us more mature, more real, not in a way that will diminish us.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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027e66c
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How long your closet held a whiff of you, Long after hangers hung austere and bare. I would walk in and suddenly the true Sharp sweet sweat scent controlled the air And life was in that small still living breath. Where are you? since so much of you is here, Your unique odour quite ignoring death. My hands reach out to touch, to hold what's dear And vital in my longing empty arms. But other clothes fill up the space, your space, And scent on..
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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035c6e3
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The peculiar idea that bigger is better has been around for at least as long as I have, and it's always bothered me. There is within it the implication that it is more difficult for God to care about a gnat than about a galaxy. Creation is just as visible in a grain of sand as in a skyful of stars. The church is not immune from the bigger-is-better heresy. One woman told of going to a meeting where only a handful of people turned out, and t..
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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a22e976
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I've got a sweater." Ben pulled off his coat and held it out for her. "Here." "Thanks, Ben. It's lovely and warm." Then she said, "Ben, I-- I can tell you how I feel about-- about everything. I think you're the best friend I've ever had. I-- I'd lie down and die for you if you wanted me to." "Honey," Ben said. "When I get you to lie down for me it won't be to die."
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spunky
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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4a4d44d
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We were sent here for something. And we know that all things work together for good them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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0e5b212
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La experiencia es la madre de la ciencia. Spanish, my dears. Cervantes. Experience is the mother of knowledge.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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c3a7f3a
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We do not know what things look like, as you say," the beast said. "We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing."
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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4ddbd5b
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you've got to learn to walk through a pigpen and not get dirty.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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0a0775b
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A winter ago I had an after-school seminar for high-school students and in one of the early sessions Una, a brilliant fifteen-year-old, a born writer who came to Harlem from Panama five years ago, and only then discovered the conflict between races, asked me, "Mrs. Franklin, do you really and truly believe in God with no doubts at all?" "Oh, Una, I really and truly believe in God with all kinds of doubts." But I base my life on this belief...
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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6be6ea3
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If we all knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we's tend not to notice the sunrise, or hear the birds, or the waves rolling into the shore. We'd tend not to treasure our time with the people we love. Simply the awareness that our mortal lives had a beginning and will have an end enhances the quality of our living. Perhaps it's even more intense when we know that the termination of the body is n..
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mortality
death
life
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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a9a6b7d
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If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.
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bravery
courage
life-and-living
life
relinquish-control
control
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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f0a7b33
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Thou cannot harm a butterfly, without troubling a star.
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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50270eb
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We cannot always cry at the right time and who is to say which time is right?
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poetry
madeleine-l-engle
right-time
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Madeleine L'Engle |
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d45dbd6
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I am encouraged as I look at some of those who have listened to their "different drum": Einstein was hopeless at school math and commented wryly on his inadequacy in human relations. Winston Churchill was an abysmal failure in his early school years. Byron, that revolutionary student, had to compensate for a club foot; Demosthenes for a stutter; and Homer was blind. Socrates couldn't manage his wife, and infuriated his countrymen. And what ..
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education
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Madeleine L'Engle |