A Wrinkle in Time Quotes

Context

Picture this:

Meg, Charles, and Calvin have just tessered (traveled across vast spaces using a time wrinkle known as a tesseract [see; The Avengers])—with the help of Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit—to Uriel, "the third planet of the star Malak in the spiral nebula Messier 101," in case you wanted to know.

Did you follow all that? Good.

Meg and Calvin are very confused about what has just happened to them. And the three Mrs. Ws? They're not doing such a good job explaining everything. They start talking about "what is at stake" and how dire things look. That's when Mrs. Who chimes in with this quote.

Hold steady, Shmoopers, because this one's got some history behind it.

Mrs. Who is exceptionally fond of quoting people, and in the text, this quote is first written in Greek and attributed to Euripides before it's translated to the English above.

But here's the problem: in Greek, the words are nonsensical. Those words don't mean anything in Greek, nor is the translation necessarily correct. The first words of the quote, which are taken from "Euripides, Selected Fragmentary Plays," mean something like "nothing hopeless," which could translate to "nothing [will happen if it is] not hoped for." The second half of the quote seems to make more sense given this alternate translation.

Where you've heard it

It's all a bit ominous, really. Generally, people don't start talking about hope unless things aren't going well to begin with.

Still, you may have heard this one in a rousing pep talk from you coach, and you can keep it in your pocket to trot out when you've got a friend in need of a truism.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

What's wrong with a little hope in our lives?

Sure, it might sound a little too fluffy and sweet, but it's a children's book where love conquers all (by which we mean a giant brain, so no, we're not talking about Harry Potter). But don't you dare bring up any of that Greek nonsense.