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Madeleine L'Engle Quotes

Madeleine L'Engle quotes about writing

American Novelist November 29, 1918 – September 6, 2007

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Quotes

I have advice for people who want to write. I don't care whether they're 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can't be a writer if you're not a reader. It's the great writers who teach us how to... Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle quote: "With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that..."
With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me. Madeleine L'Engle
We live by revelation, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues, and thanked God that he was not like other men. Unamuno might be describing the artist as well as the Christian as he writes, "Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind,... Madeleine L'Engle
A book comes and says, "Write me." My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate. Madeleine L'Engle
We, and I think I'm speaking for many writers, don't know what it is that sometimes comes to make our books alive. All we can do is write dutifully and day after day, every day, giving our work the very best of what we are capable. I don't that we can consciously put the magic in; it doesn't work that way. When the magic comes, it's a gift. Madeleine L'Engle
In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.'I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn't done deliberately. Madeleine L'Engle
When I have something to say that I think will be too difficult for adults, I write it in a book for children. Children are excited by new ideas; they have not yet closed the doors and windows of their imaginations. Provided the story is good... nothing is too difficult for children. Madeleine L'Engle
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 grade of God. Madeleine L'Engle
If our lives are truly "hid with Christ in God," the astounding thing is that this hiddenness is revealed in all that we do and say and write. What we are is going to be visible in our art, no matter how secular (on the surface) the subject may be. Madeleine L'Engle
If I never had another book published, and it was very clear to me that this was a real possibility, I still had to go on writing. I'm glad I made this decision in a moment of failure. It's easy to say you're a writer when things are going well. When the decision is made in the abyss, the in is quite clear that it is not one's own decision at all. Madeleine L'Engle
In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet…There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter…And each line has to end with a rigid pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet…But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants…You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you. 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
Madeleine L'Engle quote: "If a book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write..."
If a book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children. Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle quote: "It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of..."
It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine. Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle quote: "A book comes and says, 'Write me."
A book comes and says, 'Write me. Madeleine L'Engle

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