Quotes from The Arm of the Starfish

Madeleine L'Engle ·  288 pages

Rating: (8.5K votes)


“You cannot see the past that did not happen any more than you can foresee the future.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from The Arm of the Starfish


“If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody, and you’re stuck with it.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from The Arm of the Starfish


“Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from The Arm of the Starfish


“Rules are made for people, not people for rules,”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from The Arm of the Starfish


“If you accept any position of authority you have to know when to break or circumvent a rule. It’s the knowing when that’s important.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from The Arm of the Starfish



“There always have been and there always will be people who have been corrupted into enjoying any excuse for cruelty.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from The Arm of the Starfish


“if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from The Arm of the Starfish


“I can’t do it for love of God, like Tom Tallis, or for heaven’s sake, as Mr. Frost said. But because I love people I have to act according to it—to the fact that I love them.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from The Arm of the Starfish


“There’s something wrong about trying to heal with a surgeon’s knife.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from The Arm of the Starfish


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

“. . . my obsession with gratefulness. I can't stop. Just now, I press the elevator button and am thankful that it arrives quickly. I get onto the elevator and am thankful that the elevator cable didn't snap and plummet me to the basement. I go to the fifth floor and am thankful that I didn't have to stop on the second or third or fourth floor. I get out and am thankful that Julie left the door unlocked so I don't have to rummage for my King Kong key ring. I walk in, and am thankful that Jasper is home and healthy and stuffing his face with pineapple wedges. And on and on. I'm actually muttering to myself, 'Thank you. . .thank you. . . thank you.' It's an odd way to live. But also kind of great and powerful. I've never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.”
― A.J. Jacobs, quote from The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible


“Never climb a tree in a long dress," Kate panted, coming up behind me.

"I'll remember that," I said.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn


“Life is sometimes novel-shaped, mocking the efforts of those authors who, in an effort to make their novels life-shaped, spurn the easy symmetry and cheap resonance of reality.”
― Stephen Fry, quote from Moab Is My Washpot


“He was the only one that could remove it now that he had placed it upon her. He was the one that owned and controlled her; everyone would know that she belonged to him. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that, he didn't like owning her. He did, however, like the fact that everyone would know that she belonged to him, that they couldn't touch her. Ever.”
― Erica Stevens, quote from Captured


“Good-bye, good-bye,' muttered Gwystyl. 'I hate to see you waste your time, not to mention your lives. But that's the way of it, I suppose. Here today, gone tomorrow, and what's anyone to do about it? Good-bye. I hope we meet again. But not soon. Good-bye.”
― Lloyd Alexander, quote from The Black Cauldron


Interesting books

The End of the World
(4.5K)
The End of the World
by Derek Landy
Reawakened
(6.8K)
Reawakened
by Colleen Houck
Updraft
(2.5K)
Updraft
by Fran Wilde
Last Song Before Night
(850)
Last Song Before Nig...
by Ilana C. Myer
City of Blades
(6.9K)
City of Blades
by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Spider's War
(3.9K)
The Spider's War
by Daniel Abraham

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.