Madeleine L'engle said this quote

“ I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be... This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages...the delayed adolescent, the childish adult, but that they are in me to be drawn on; to forget is a form of suicide... Far too many people misunderstand what *putting away childish things* means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old means being grownup. When I'm with these people I, like the kids, feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up, then I don't ever want to be one. Instead of which, if I can retain a child's awareness and joy, and *be* fifty-one, then I will really learn what it means to be grownup. ”

Famous Quotes of Madeleine L'engle

Famous quotes of Madeleine L'engle from the classy quote

See all

Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.

~ Madeleine L'engle

Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit

~ Madeleine L'engle

But my memories are like a fire in winter—whenever I'm cold I can warm my hands at them.—Ditta

~ Madeleine L'engle

It might be a good idea if, like the White Queen, we practiced believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast, for we are called on to believe what to many people is impossible. Instead of rejoicing in this glorious impossible which gives meaning and dignity to our lives, we try to domesticate God, to make his might actions comprehensible to our finite minds.

~ Madeleine L'engle