"We human beings. We've forgotten what's worth saving and what's not, or we wouldn't be in this mess." (p.17)

"Strength can always be used to destroy as well as create." (p.28)

"People are meant to worship the gods, not themselves." (p.85)

"Change is the way of the world." (p.122)

"People are afraid of knowledge that is not yet theirs." (p.127)

"Stories are like children. They grow in their own way." (p.180)

"Hate hurts the hater more than the hated." (p.205)

I've read this book three times. But the last time I read it, some of the scientific talk involved, the physics and all that, made more sense to me (perhaps because the last time I read it I was taking physics). The tesseract is what confused me before, but I understand now, with the picture of the string an the ant as demonstration, that what they're basically talking about is a loophole. (See "The Elegant Universe".) I still don't understand how one calls up the wrinkle to jump, but I suppose that must just be the fantasy of it.

"The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing. (Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.)" -Pascal

"Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honourable. (Ab honesto virum bonum nihil deterrent)."

"'Do you think things always have an explanation?'
'Yes, I believe that they do. But I think that with our human limitation we're not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist.'"

"People are more than just the way they look."

"An old ass knows more than a young colt. (Un asno viejo sabe mas que un potro.)" -A. Perez

"Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everthing. (Αεηπον ούόέν, πάντα ό εηπίειν χρεωτ.)" -Euripedes

"Experience is the mother of knowledge. (La experiencia es la madre de la ciencia.)" -Cervantes

"How small is the earth to him who looks from heaven. (Que la terre est petite a qui la voit des cieux.)" -Delille

"I do not know everthing; still many thing I understand. (Allwissend bin ich nict; doch viel ist mir bewisst.)" -Goethe

"Things which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal."

"What we can give you now is nothing you can touch with your hands. I give you my love. Never forget that. My love always."

"Like and equal are not the same thing at all!" -Meg

This Newberry Medal winner by Madeline L'Engle is a rich and beautiful coming-of-age story about love, family, responsibility, good and evil, and faith of all kinds.

Meg Murray feels like a misfit, both in her family and at school. Her baby brother Charles Wallace is a genius, like her father and mother, and her twin brothers Sandy and Dennys are popular and successful.

Her father, a scientist, left the family to do research as a scientist, but it's been more than a year and all contact has stopped. Meg and Charles Wallace and a new-found friend Calvin, meet three mysterious old ladies; Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, who take them on a journey to find Dr. Murray and bring him home.

The kids explore the concepts of time and space, good and evil, and responsibility. Can a child rescue a parent from peril? Do parents really know everything? And sometimes, the family you choose can give you as much and love you as much, as the family into which you were born.

Technically, this is science fiction or fantasy, but I've loved it since childhood as a story about children and parents and the roles they play within the family and in the universe. This is the first of a trilogy that includes A Wind In the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet...and it intersects with the Austin family books that L'Engle wrote.

Really fun. And interesting. One of the best young-adult fantasy novels, I think.

When young Bastian finds a book he finds totally absorbing, for a most unusual reason, he finds himself embroiled in the strange and wonderful world where Atreyu is adventuring. The descriptions are fantastic, the sinister Nothing is frightening and the plot is fascinating. Bastian finds this book is more than he ever bargained for.

BLURB
Bastian Balthazar Bux is nobody's idea of a hero, least of all his own. Through the pages of an old book he discovers a mysterious world of enchantment - one falling into decay. The task of making things well again falls to Bastian - and so begins an unforgettable and magical adventure.

This book contains so much - the blurb doesn't do it justice, but so much happens, keeping it brief is probably best!!

Read, pass among your friends and introduce it to your kids! A classic!

My favorite book. It deals with fairly much everything: light, darkness, friendship, love or the lack thereof, good, evil and that strange grey area in between. Mostly I like its theme of intertwined realities. Another translation of "Die Unendliche Geschicte" could be "The Infinite History", which might capture the idea better.