Cover of A Wrinkle in Time

Book Highlights

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L'Engle

What it's about

Meg Murry travels across space and time to rescue her father from a dark force that threatens the universe. The story highlights the clash between rigid conformity and the messy, unpredictable power of individual love.

Key ideas

  • The sonnet of life: You are given a set of circumstances, but you have the freedom to choose how you live within that structure.
  • The power of love: Empathy and emotional connection provide a strength that cold logic and intellect cannot replicate.
  • The danger of conformity: Sameness creates a false sense of security, but true growth requires embracing individual differences.
  • The necessity of fear: Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to act despite it.

You'll love this book if...

  • You enjoy stories where misfits and outsiders use their unique flaws to save the day.
  • You're looking for a blend of science fiction, philosophy, and a reminder that being different is a strength.

Best for

Readers who feel like they do not quite fit in and need a reminder that their perspective matters.

Books with the same vibe

  • The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
  • The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
  • The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

30 popular highlights from this book

Key Insights & Memorable Quotes

The most popular highlights from A Wrinkle in Time, saved by readers on Screvi.

“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit”
“We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.”
“Believing takes practice.”
“I do not know everything; still many things I understand.”
“The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly.”
“Like and equal are not the same thing at all.”
“People are more than just the way they look.”
“If you aren't unhappy sometimes you don't know how to be happy.”
“A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.”
“Only a fool is not afraid.”
“Thinking I'm a moron gives people something to feel smug about," Charles Wallace said. "Why should I disillusion them?”
“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.”
“We do not know what things look like. We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing,this seeing. -Aunt Beast”
“A book, too, can be a star, “explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,” a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”
“They are very young. And on their earth, as they call it, they never communicate with other planets. They revolve about all alone in space.""Oh," the thin beast said. "Aren't they lonely?”
“Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point. French. Pascal. The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing.”
“Euripedes. Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything.”
“Qui plussait, plus se tait. French, you know. The more a man knows, the less he talks.”
“Experiment is the mother of knowledge.”
“Have you ever tried to get to your feet with a sprained dignity?”
“Calvin said, "Do you know that this is the first time I've seen you without your glasses?""I'm blind as a bat without them. I'm near-sighted, like father.""Well, you know what, you've got dream-boat eyes," Calvin said. "Listen, you go right on wearing your glasses. I don't think I want anybody else to see what gorgeous eyes you have.”
“It seemed to travel with her, to sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too, felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real.”
“Wild nights are my glory!”
“You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? Yes. Mrs. Whatsit said. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.”
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
“Meg, don't you think you'd make a better adjustment to life if you faced facts?" I do face facts," Meg said.They're lots easier to face than people, I can tell you.”
“Love. That was what she had that IT did not have.”
“We look not at the things which are what you would call seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal.”
“It was the same way with silence. This was more than silence. A deaf person can feel vibrations. Here there was nothing to feel.”
“I don't know if they're really like everybody else, or if they're able to pretend they are.”

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