Quotes from A Wind in the Door

“Don't try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Progo,' Meg asked. 'You memorized the names of all the stars - how many are there?'

How many? Great heavens, earthling. I haven't the faintest idea.'

But you said your last assignment was to memorize the names of all of them.'

I did. All the stars in all the galaxies. And that's a great many.'

But how many?'

What difference does it make? I know their names. I don't know how many there are. It's their names that matter.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do. I've never had a feeling in my life. As a matter of fact, I matter only with earth people.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“you and I have good enough minds to know how very limited and finite they really are. The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“I think your mythology would call them fallen angels. War and hate are their business, and one of their chief weapons is un-Naming - making people not know who they are. If someone knows who he is, really knows, then he doesn't need to hate. That's why we still need Namers, because there are places throughout the universe like your planet Earth. When everyone is really and truly Named, then the Echthroi will be vanquished.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Hey Meg! Communication implies sound. Communion doesn't.' He sent her a brief image of walking silently through the woods, the two of them alone together., their feet almost noiseless on the rusty carpet of pine needles. They walked without speaking, without touching, and yet they were as close as it is possible for two human beings to be. They climbed up through the woods, coming out into the brilliant sunlight at the top of the hill. A few sumac trees showed their rusty candles. Mountain laurel, shiny, so dark a green the leaves seemed black in the fierceness of sunlight, pressed toward the woods. Meg and Calvin had stretched out in the thick, late-summer grass, lying on their backs, gazing up into the shimmering blue of sky, a vault interrupted only by a few small clouds.

And she had been as happy, she remembered, as it is possible to be, and as close to Calvin as she had ever been to anybody in her life, even Charles Wallace, so close that their separate bodies, daisies and buttercups joining rather than dividing them, seemed a single enjoyment of summer and sun and each other.

That was surely the purest kind of thing.

Mr. Jenkins had never had that kind of communion with another human being, a communion so rich and full that silence speaks more powerfully than words.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“We tend to think things are new because we just discovered them.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“We don’t have to know everything at once. We just do one thing at a time, as it is given us to do.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“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. The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Meg, when people don't know who they are, they are open either to being Xed, or Named”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“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 the fortitude and endurance and hope which he had given her.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“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 the singers. Our song orders the rhythm of creation.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Wait until tomorrow to find what tomorrow holds.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Fewmets is my new swear word. I’m tired of all the old ones.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“There are still stars which move in ordered and beautiful rhythm. There are still people in this world who keep promises.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“A life form which can’t adapt doesn’t last very long.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Meg’s eyes were too bright. “I wish human beings couldn’t have feelings. I am having feelings. They hurt.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“That was surely the purest kind of kything. Mr. Jenkins had never had that kind of communion with another human being, a communion so rich and full that silence speaks more powerfully than words.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“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, quote from A Wind in the Door

“It is the pattern throughout Creation. One child, one man, can swing the balance of the universe.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“You must understand with your hearts. With the whole of yourselves, not just a fragment.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“There are still stars which move in ordered and beautiful rhythm. There are still people in this world who keep promises.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“It's a lot simpler to adapt to low gravity, or no atmosphere, or even sandstorms than it is to hustle inhabitants.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Mr Jenkins. Unique, as every star in the sky is unique, every leaf on every tree, every snowflake, every farandola, every cherubim, unique: Named.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Love isn't what you feel. It's what you do.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“I wish human beings couldn't have feelings. I am having feelings. They hurt.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“Idiot,” Proginoskes said, anxiously rather than crossly. “Love isn’t how you feel. It’s what you do.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

“The temptation for farandola or for man or for star is to stay an immature pleasure-seeker. When we seek our own pleasure as the ultimate good we place ourselves as the center of the universe. A fara or a man or a star has his place in the universe, but nothing created is the center.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from A Wind in the Door

About the author

Popular quotes

“Evening prayer

I spend my life sitting, like an angel in a barber's chair,
Holding a beer mug with deep-cut designs,
My neck and gut both bent, while in the air
A weightless veil of pipe smoke hangs.

Like steaming dung within an old dovecote
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From time to time my heart is like some oak
Whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn.

And then, when I have swallowed down my Dreams
In thirty, forty mugs of beer, I turn
To satisfy a need I can't ignore,

And like the Lord of Hyssop and of Myrrh
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That consecrates a patch of flowering fern.”
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Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way.
And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.”
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