HOW EACH STAGE MAKES THE WHOLE

'I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child I am always a child. Because I was one a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be. Because I was once a rebellious student, there is and always will be in me the student crying out for reform.

This does to mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any these ages, the perpetual student, the delayed adolescent, the childish adult, but that they are in me to be drawn on; to forget is a form of suicide: my past is part of what makes the present Madeleine and must not be denied or rejected or forgotten.'

Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet, p.200.