It was herself she placed between us and the powers of darkness

[sovay]

This summer. Has many redeeming qualities, but the continuing obituaries are not among them. All the people I read young.

Meg muttered, "It'd have been a lot easier if I could have gone on hating him."

Now it was Proginoskes's voice in her mind's ear, not Calvin's. "What would be easier?"

"Naming him."

"Would it? Don't you know more about him now?"

"Second-hand. I've never known him to do anything else nice."

"How do you suppose he feels about you?"

"He's never seen me except when I'm snarly," she admitted. She found herself almost laughing as she remembered Mr. Jenkins saying, 'Margaret, you are the most contumacious child it has ever been my misfortune to have in this office,' and she had had to go home and look up 'contumacious.'

—Madeleine L'Engle, A Wind in the Door (1973)

Comments

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

I haven't read her since I was a kid, but it's a fond place in my memory. The bit you quote here strikes some lovely chords.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That was another favorite passage of mine, along with the song Meg sings in the end to Name the Ecthroi. I liked when Progo got her to remember about Calvin and the shoes. I remember that a lot, actually, when I'm feeling really snarly about someone. I think, what if I had to Name that person...

You know an author's really something when she gets you to think like that...

thanks for putting it up.

I didn't put my favorite part up on my page, but I put a part I really liked over at sartorias's page...

[yukihada.livejournal.com]

That is one of my favorite moments in the series. And that my beloved book in that trilogy. The world lost a great writer today.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Yeesh. Yeah.

[time-shark.livejournal.com]

A Wind in the Door was my favorite of those books, though I only read it once.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Oh no.

Thanks for posting that quotation.

(I live in a cave for the duration of the standard workday, I guess--)