“I think that this scene is upsetting because it calls us beyond fact into the vast world of imagination, and imagination is a word of many dimensions.”

—  Madeleine L'Engle

Acceptance Speech for the Margaret Edwards Award (1998)
Source: A Circle of Quiet
Context: In Kenneth Grahame's beautiful book, The Wind In The Willows, Mole and Rat go to the holy island of the great god, Pan. It is a superb piece of religious writing, but because it has gone beyond fact, it is deeply upsetting and untruthful to some people. If a story is not specified as being Christian, it is not Christian. But that is not so.
I think that this scene is upsetting because it calls us beyond fact into the vast world of imagination, and imagination is a word of many dimensions.

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Madeleine L'Engle photo
Madeleine L'Engle 223
American writer 1918–2007

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