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

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“Sweet to me your voice, said Caolcrodha Mac Morna, brother to sweet-worded sweet-toothed Goll from Sliabh Riabhach and Brosnacha Bladhma, relate then the attributes that are to Finn's people.

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I will relate, said Finn. Till a man has accomplished twelve books of poetry, the same is not taken for want of poetry but is forced away. No man is taken till a black hole is hollowed in the world to the depth of his two oxters and he put into it to gaze from it with his lonely head and nothing to him but his shield and a stick of hazel. Then must nine warriors fly their spears at him, one with the other and together. If he be spear-holed past his shield, or spear-killed, he is not taken for want of shield-skill. No man is taken till he is run by warriors through the woods of Erin with his hair bunched-loose about him for bough-tangle and briar-twitch. Should branches disturb his hair or pull it forth like sheep-wool on a hawthorn, he is not taken but is caught and gashed. Weapon-quivering hand or twig-crackling foot at full run, neither is taken. Neck-high sticks he must pass by vaulting, knee-high sticks by stooping. With the eyelids to him stitched to the fringe of his eye-bags, he must be run by Finn's people through the bogs and the marsh-swamps of Erin with two odorous prickle-backed hogs ham-tied and asleep in the seat of his hempen drawers. If he sink beneath a peat-swamp or lose a hog, he is not accepted of Finn's people. For five days he must sit on the brow of a cold hill with twelve-pointed stag-antlers hidden in his seat, without food or music or chessmen. If he cry out or eat grass-stalks or desist from the constant recital of sweet poetry and melodious Irish, he is not taken but is wounded. When pursued by a host, he must stick a spear in the world and hide behind it and vanish in its narrow shelter or he is not taken for want of sorcery. Likewise he must hide beneath a twig, or behind a dried leaf, or under a red stone, or vanish at full speed into the seat of his hempen drawers without changing his course or abating his pace or angering the men of Erin. Two young fosterlings he must carry under the armpits to his jacket through the whole of Erin, and six arm-bearing warriors in his seat together. If he be delivered of a warrior or a blue spear, he is not taken. One hundred head of cattle he must accommodate with wisdom about his person when walking all Erin, the half about his armpits and the half about his trews, his mouth never halting from the discoursing of sweet poetry. One thousand rams he must sequester about his trunks with no offence to the men of Erin, or he is unknown to Finn. He must swiftly milk a fat cow and carry milk-pail and cow for twenty years in the seat of his drawers. When pursued in a chariot by the men of Erin he must dismount, place horse and chariot in the slack of his seat and hide behind his spear, the same being stuck upright in Erin. Unless he accomplishes these feats, he is not wanted of Finn. But if he do them all and be skilful, he is of Finn's people.”
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