Meredith Geldmeier > Meredith's Quotes

“Some things have to be believed to be seen.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be... This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages...the delayed adolescent, the childish adult, but that they are in me to be drawn on; to forget is a form of suicide... Far too many people misunderstand what *putting away childish things* means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old means being grownup. When I'm with these people I, like the kids, feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up, then I don't ever want to be one. Instead of which, if I can retain a child's awareness and joy, and *be* fifty-one, then I will really learn what it means to be grownup.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“She seems to have had the ability to stand firmly on the rock of her past while living completely and unregretfully in the present.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“when I’m mad I don’t have room to be scared.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

“Nothing, no one, is too small to matter. What you do is going to make a difference.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Swiftly Tilting Planet

“Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith. Faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“My lovely shining fragile broken house is filled with flowers and founded on a rock.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“I Name you Echthroi. I Name you Meg.
I Name you Calvin.
I Name you Mr. Jenkins.
I Name you Proginoskes.
I fill you with Naming.
Be!
Be, butterfly and behemoth,
be galaxy and grasshopper,
star and sparrow,
you matter,
you are,
be!
Be caterpillar and comet,
Be porcupine and planet,
sea sand and solar system,
sing with us,
dance with us,
rejoice with us,
for the glory of creation,
seagulls and seraphim
angle worms and angel host,
chrysanthemum and cherubim.
(O cherubim.)
Be!
Sing for the glory
of the living and the loving
the flaming of creation
sing with us
dance with us
be with us.
Be!"
- Madeleine L'Engle, A Wind in the Door”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“But where, after we have made the great decision to leave the security of childhood and move on into the vastness of maturity, does anybody ever feel completely at home?”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet

“Holiness ... is nothing we can *do* ... It is gift, sheer gift, waiting there to be recognized and received. We do not have to be qualified to be holy. We do not have to be qualified to be whole, or healed.Made”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“And then her heart changed, or at least she understood it; and the winter passed, and the sun shone upon her.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”
― E.B. White

“These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur — this lovely world, these precious days…”
― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
― A.A. Milne

“I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen.”
― A.A. Milne

“Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Any day spent with you is my favorite day. So today is my new favorite day.”
― A.A. Milne

“When you do the things that you can do, you will find a way.”
― A.A. Milne

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
― Lewis Carroll

“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.”
“It must come sometimes to ‘jam to-day,’” Alice objected.
“No, it ca’n’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know”
― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream.”
― Les Brown, Live Your Dreams: Les Brown's Formula and Action Planner for Achieving Success and Happiness

“You cannot run away from a weakness, you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now and where you stand?”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde