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
Madeleine L'Engle
Born place: in New York City, New York, The United States
Born date November 29, 1918
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“Dear Julie:
If I didn't feel that there is some good in your story, I wouldn't take the time to write a criticism of it. But there is some good in it, some points that make me feel that if you expend the effort(Look who's talking about expending the effort, I couldn't help thinking) you may well achieve your very worthy ambition.
First of all, you have an ear for cadence. Your sentences flow rather smoothly, and the continuity of your paragraphs is quite good.
Secondly, your imagery is sharp and clear-cut. I could smell that dank, rat-infested attic and I was more than a little in love with your pretty heroine by the time she emerged from her third paragraph. Furthermore, you occasionally achieve poetic effects which are pleasing.
But, my darling niece, your villains have nothing but venom in their souls, and your sympathetic characters are ready to step right off into Paradise without one spot to tarnish their purity. People aren't like that, Julie. Take a look around you.
Again, all your colors, your moods, your nusances, are essentially feminine, and it just doesn't ring true to be told that a man is responsible for them. No, Julie, it will be a long time before you speak and think and feel like an anguished old German musician of eighty! And, after all, what do you know about the problems of musical composition, or the life of an impoverised German laborer such as the landlord in his nineteenth-century environment? And how much do you know about sadism and brutality?
I must talk to you about any number of points. When you get home from school tomorrow, I shall have some recommendations to make; also some assignments. I am quite excited. It well may be that I have the making of a future writer in my hands.
Uncle Haskell”
― Irene Hunt, quote from Up a Road Slowly
“What he wanted was Megan wanting him... but not needing him. Not vulnerable to him. Sure as help not trying to leave him over and over again... and simply failing.”
― Mira Lyn Kelly, quote from Waking Up Married
“I’ve been protecting you since I joined the Mauricio family. You were why I joined them in the first place.” What?”
― Tijan, quote from Carter Reed
“You never bother me, Glory. It's remarkable how much you don't bother me. Almost unprecedented.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home
“Yes," Safi breathed, swaying into one of the men holding her up. She flashed a grin at him and said, "I'm Safiya fon Hasstrel, and I can do anything.”
― Susan Dennard, quote from Truthwitch
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