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"Why does anybody do anything?" Mimi asked impatiently. "Most of the time we don't know--any of us."
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"The courage to ask question is the willingness to know."

"Derisively, Ronan said, 'No. The ancient Greeks didn't have a word for Blue.'Everyone at the table looked at him.'What the hell, Ronan?' said Adam.'It's hard to imagine," Gansey mused, 'how this evidently successful classical education never seems to make it into your school papers.''They never ask the right questions,' Ronan replied."

"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. Without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail."

"But here is the thing about the stars and all of it's faults: We don't understand everything about it, but we still love it's beauty and wonder. We know of all the dangers, but we would still go there just because we wanted to touch the stars."

"I was also supposed to quiz my various companions on a number of important matters such as nostalgia, fear of unknown animals, food fantasies, nocturnal emissions, hobbies, choice of radio program, changes in out look and so forth."

"He wants to see, he wants to know, only to see and know. I'm aware that it is this mentality, this curiosity, which is responsible for the hydrogen bomb and the imminent demise of civilization and that we would all be better off if we were still at the stone-worshipping stage. Though surely it is not this affable inquisitiveness that should be blamed."

"When the unknown becomes known, we lose something very big: The beauty of mystery!"

"We men are fascinated by the things we don't really understand. It gives us something to think and talk about: like females, they drive us nuts."
Explore more quotes by Madeleine L'Engle

"If the artist reflects only his own culture, then his works will die with that culture. But if his works reflect the eternal and universal, they will revive."

"I have advice for people who want to write. I don't care whether they're 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can't be a writer if you're not a reader. It's the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it's for only half an hour - write, write, write."

"We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world. We've come to the point where it's irresponsible to try to protect them from the irrational world they will have to live in when they grow up. The children themselves haven't yet isolated themselves by selfishness and indifference; they do not fall easily into the error of despair; they are considerably braver than most grownups. Our responsibility to them is not to pretend that if we don't look, evil will go away, but to give them weapons against it."

"I am encouraged as I look at some of those who have listened to their "different drum": Einstein was hopeless at school math and commented wryly on his inadequacy in human relations. Winston Churchill was an abysmal failure in his early school years. Byron, that revolutionary student, had to compensate for a club foot; Demosthenes for a stutter; and Homer was blind. Socrates couldn't manage his wife, and infuriated his countrymen. And what about Jesus, if we need an ultimate example of failure with one's peers? Or an ultimate example of love?"

"Who makes you least confused?""Calvin" There was no hesitation here. "When I'm with Calvin, I don't mind being me""You mean he makes you more you, don't you?""I guess you could put it that way."

"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."

"We do learn and develop when we are exposed to those who are greater than we are. Perhaps this is the chief way we mature."
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