A Wrinkle in Time

"Too windy up in that attic of yours. I knew you'd be down. I put some milk on the stove for you. It ought to be hot by now."
"Oh, my darling, you're not dumb. You're like Charles Wallace. Your development has to go its own pace. it just doesn't happen to be the usual pace."
"I hate being an oddball. It's hard on Sandy and Dennys, too. I don't know if they're really like everybody else, or if they're just able to pretend they are. I try to pretend, but it isn't any help."
"I shall just sit down for a moment and pop on my boots and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, pet, by the way, there is such a things as a tesseract."
"No, Meg. Don't hope it was a dream. I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be. I'm sorry I showed you I was upset. Your father and I used to have a joke about tesseract."
"I don't think it's that. It's being able to understand a sort of language, like sometimes if I concentrate very hard I can understand the wind talking with the trees. You tell me, you see, sort of inadvertently. That's a good word, isn't it?"
"Well, I think you're handsome. Father's eyes are kind of like yours, too. You know. Really blue. Only you don't notice his as much because of the glasses."
"The trouble with Meg and math, is that Meg and her father used to play with numbers and Meg learned far too many short cuts. So when they want her to do problems the long way around at school she gets sullen and stubborn and sets up a fine mental block for herself."
"How did all this happen? Isn't it wonderful? I feel as though I were just being born! I'm not alone any more! Do you realize what that means to me?"
"Yes, I believe that they do. But I think that with our human limitations we're not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist."
"Wanting doesn't have anything to do with it. Charles Wallace is what he is. Different. New."
"Oh, Meg, you are a moron. Don't you know you're the nicest thing that's happened to me in a long time?"
"If Charles Wallace is a sport, I think I'm a biological mistake."
"My, but I wish there was no wind. It's so difficult with all these clothes. Oh, dear. I shall never learn to manage."
"All right, girls. This is no time for bickering."
"Mrs. Which, you haven't left Meg behind, have you?"
"Charles Wallace knows. Charles Wallace knows that it's far more than just the life of his father. Charles Wallace knows what's at stake."
"Oh, we don't travel at the speed of anything. We tesser. Or you might say, we wrinkle."
"Make it go away, Mrs. Whatsit. Make it go away. It's evil."
"That dark Thing we saw. Is that what my father is fighting?"
"Now, don't worry, my pet. We took care of that before we left. your mother has had enough to worry her with you and Charles to cope with, and not knowing about your father, without our adding to her anxieties. We took a time wrinkle as well as a space wrinkle. It's easy to do if you just know how."
"Oh, why must you make me look at unpleasant things when there are so many delightful ones to see?"
"And we're not alone, you know, children. All through the universe it's being fought, all through the cosmos, and my, but it's a grand and exciting battle. I know it's hard for you to understand about size, how there's very little difference in the size of the tiniest microbe and the greatest galaxy."
"I didn't mean to tell you. I didn't mean ever to let you know. But, oh, my dears, I did so love being a star!"
"It does seem as though I should be able to do something nice for you, after having had to show these poor children such horrid things. Would they like to see their mother before they go?"
"Well, kiss me good-by for good luck, then."
"What are you kids doing out on the street? Only route boys are allowed out now, you know that."
"Yes, and she told us that it was going to be worse for you that for Meg and me, and that you must be careful. you stay right here with Meg, old sport, and let me go in and case the joint and then report to you."
"I think I shall have to report you. I'm fold of children, due to the nature of my work and I don't like to get them in trouble, but rather than run the risk myself of reprocessing I must report you."
"There is nothing to fear except fear itself. I'm quoting. Like Mrs. Who. Meg, I'm scared stiff."
"Don't let go my hands! Hold me tight! He's trying to get at me!"
"You see, what you will soon realize is that there is no need to fight me. Not only is there no need, but you will not have the slightest desire to do so. For why should you wish to fight someone who is here only to save you pain and trouble? For you, as well as for the rest of all the happy, useful people on this planet, I, in my own strength, am willing to assume all the pain, all the responsibility, all the burdens of thought and decision."
"What's wrong, Meg? Why are you being so belligerent and uncooperative?"
"Meg, you've got to stop fighting and relax. Relax and be happy. Oh, Meg, if you'd just relax you'd realize that all our troubles are over. you don't understand what a wonderful place we've come to. You see, on this planet everything is in perfect order because everybody has learned to relax and to give in, to submit."
"Up. On Camazotz we are all happy because we are all alike. Differences create problems. You know that, don't you, dear sister?"
"But nobody's ever happy, either. Maybe if you aren't unhappy sometimes you don't know how to be happy. Calvin, I want to go home."
"The periodic table of elements, Meg! Say it!"
"Yes. It's a frightening as well as an exciting thing to discover that matter and energy are the same thing, that size is an illusion, and that time is a material substance. We can know this, but it's far more that we can understand with our puny little brains."
"It is so long since my own small ones were grown and gone. You are so tiny and vulnerable. Now I will feed you. You must eat slowly and quietly. I know that you are half starved, that you have been without food far too long, but you must not rush things or you will not get well."
"You know what the outcome will probably be! And she's weak, now, weaker than she was before. She was almost killed by the Black Thing. I fail to understand how you can even consider such a thing."
"Oh, not in this kind of thing. If we know ahead of time what was going to happen we'd be -- we'd be like the people on Camazotz, with no lives of our own, with everything all planned and done for us. How can I explain it to you? Oh, I know. In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet."
"You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict for, but freedom within it?"
"You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you."
"First thing tomorrow I must get some new glasses."