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"Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am, Enflesh me. Give birth to me." And the artist either says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary."
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"The future is created by those who have a great imagination and the will to make it a reality by their actions."

"The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of a writer."

"Skill gives you legs to jog, talent gives you legs to run, brilliance gives you legs to sprint, but genius gives you wings to fly."

"For you to make your creative work creative, you must seek creativity from the creator."

"Imagination is a glorious wonder."

"Writing the same kind of material is no guarantee you'll be working from the same ethos so that writers from different fields are just as likely to have an understanding of each other's work as someone working in the same genre."

"Every time a man puts a new idea across he finds ten men who thought of it before he did - but they only thought of it."

"I want to paint the rest of my days with the best colors."

"It does not need to be perfect - or technically correct - to be magic."

"What may be myth in one world may always be fact in some other."
Explore more quotes by Madeleine L'Engle

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."

"When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable."

"With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me."

"Rather than feeling lost and unimportant and meaningless, set against galaxies which go beyond the reach of the furthest telescopes, I feel that my life has meaning. Perhaps I should feel insignificant, but instead I feel a soaring in my heart that the God who could create all this - and out of nothing - can still count the hairs of my head."

"As long as we know what it's about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain."

"To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory."

"Hate is like cancer, separate from the normal cells, devouring and not being nourished, annihilating itself along with everything it attacks."

"The writer does want to be published; the painter urgently hopes that someone will see the finished canvas (van Gogh was denied the satisfaction of having his work bought and appreciated during his lifetime; no wonder the pain was more than he could bear); the composer needs his music to be heard. Art is communication, and if there is no communication it is as though the work has been stillborn."
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