Quotes from An Acceptable Time

Madeleine L'Engle ·  343 pages

Rating: (16.5K votes)


“Truth is eternal. Knowledge is changeable. It is disastrous to confuse them.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from An Acceptable Time


“My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from An Acceptable Time


“But if I knew everything, there would be no wonder, because what I believe in is far more than I know.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from An Acceptable Time


“My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business...”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from An Acceptable Time


“Okay, Polly,” her grandfather said. “Let’s have some normal, ordinary lesson time. What is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle?”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from An Acceptable Time



About the author

Madeleine L'Engle
Born place: in New York City, New York, The United States
Born date November 29, 1918
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end. Before we get it we live in a continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present. Happiness is endless happiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life


“That reminded him of how thrifty she was, and he promptly decided-at least for the moment-that her thriftiness was one of her most endearingly amusing qualities.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
He tipped his chin down so that he could better see her and brushed a stray lock of golden hair off her cheek. “I was thinking how wise I must be to have known within minutes of meeting you that you were wonderful.”
She chuckled, thinking his words were teasing flattery. “How soon did my qualities become apparent?”
“I’d say,” he thoughtfully replied, “I knew it when you took sympathy on Galileo.”
She’d expected him to say something about her looks, not her conversation or her mind. “Truly?” she asked with unhidden pleasure.
He nodded, but he was studying her reaction with curiosity. “What did you think I was going to say?”
Her slim shoulders lifted in an embarrassed shrug. “I thought you would say it was my face you noticed first. People have the most extraordinary reaction to my face,” she explained with a disgusted sigh.
“I can’t imagine why,” he said, grinning down at what was, in his opinion-in anyone’s opinion-a heartbreakingly beautiful face belonging to a young woman who was sprawled across his chest looking like an innocent golden goddess.
“I think it’s my eyes. They’re an odd color.”
“I see that now,” he teased, then he said more solemnly, “but as it happens it was not your face which I found so beguiling when we met in the garden, because,” he added when she looked unconvinced, “I couldn’t see it.”
“Of course you could. I could see yours well enough, even though night had fallen.”
“Yes, but I was standing near a torch lamp, while you perversely remained in the shadows. I could tell that yours was a very nice face, with the requisite features in the right places, and I could also tell that your other-feminine assets-were definitely in all the right places, but that was all I could see. And then later that night I looked up and saw you walking down the staircase. I was so surprised, it took a considerable amount of will to keep from dropping the glass I was holding.”
Her happy laughter drifted around the room and reminded him of music. “Elizabeth,” he said dryly, “I am not such a fool that I would have let a beautiful face alone drive me to madness, or to asking you to marry me, or even to extremes of sexual desire.”
She saw that he was perfectly serious, and she sobered, “Thank you,” she said quietly. “That is the nicest compliment you could have paid me, my lord.”
“Don’t call me ‘my lord,’” he told her with a mixture of gentleness and gravity, “unless you mean it. I dislike having you address me that way if it’s merely a reference to my title.”
Elizabeth snuggled her cheek against his hard chest and quietly replied, “As you wish. My lord.”
Ian couldn’t help it. He rolled her onto her back and devoured her with his mouth, claimed her with his hands and then his body.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Almost Heaven


“King Nicholas had explained the lense box to”
― Eoin Colfer, quote from Airman


“There comes always a moment when the desire to act, however ill the cause, is stronger than the wish to listen.”
― Kate Mosse, quote from Sepulchre


“Cause sometimes it's hard to let the future begin!”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun


Interesting books

The Thin Executioner
(4.4K)
The Thin Executioner
by Darren Shan
The Bird and the Sword
(18.9K)
The Bird and the Swo...
by Amy Harmon
Diaspora
(5.5K)
Diaspora
by Greg Egan
Glimmerglass
(19.5K)
Glimmerglass
by Jenna Black
The Wedding
(24.2K)
The Wedding
by Julie Garwood
Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife
(45.1K)
Proof of Heaven: A N...
by Eben Alexander

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.