Quotes from The Arm of the Starfish

“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

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Popular quotes

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“      The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

Interesting books

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.