Charles Lint Quotes & Sayings

When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it. — Charles De Lint

There are as many stories to be told as there are people to tell them about; only the mean-spirited would consider there to be a competition at all. — Charles De Lint

Time had ceased to feel linear. She looked up through the crisscrossing branches, thick with buds, into the night sky. The stars tugged at her gaze, trying to pull her up among them, or she was pulling them down to her. She was on the verge of some great discovery, she realized, but she had no idea what it was, what it related to, whether it even had anything to do with her at all. Was she a participant, or an observer? Did the world center around her, or could it carry on quite easily without her input? Looking up at those stars, feeling the embrace of their light as it enfolded her, she felt both small and large, as though everything mattered and nothing did. When someone crouched down beside her it took years for her to turn her head to see who it was. All she could make out was a dark shape, a vague outline of head and shoulders silhouetted against the stars, the rest of the body lost in the shadows of the rose bushes. — Charles De Lint

They have alls these laws and social boundaries to keep the worst of them in check. The problem is, villains and bullies just ignore that kind of thing. — Charles De Lint

A name can't begin to encompass the sum of all her parts. But that's the magic of names, isn't it? That the complex, contradictory individuals we are can be called up complete and whole in another mind through the simple sorcery of a name. — Charles De Lint

Years ago, when I was about to go on a book tour for Someplace to Be Flying, my editor at the time Terri Windling and I sat down to figure out what to call what I was writing for the interviews that were to come. Terri came up with the term mythic fiction and I think that sums it up perfectly. There are almost invariably mythic elements in my fiction (as well as bits of folk and faerie lore) and the term doesn't lock me into writing only in an urban setting since many of my stories take place in rural areas. It never caught on, but when I don't describe what I do as simply fiction, I'll go with mythic fiction. — Charles De Lint

The old gods and their magics did not dwindle away into murky memories of brownies and little fairies more at home in a Disney cartoon; rather, they changed. The coming of Christ and Christians actually freed them. They were no longer bound to people's expectations but could now become anything that they could imagine themselves to be. They are still here, walking among us. We just don't recognize them anymore. — Charles De Lint

Everything has a spirit and it's all connected. If you think about that, if you live your life by it, then you're less likely to cause any hurt. It's like how our bodies go back into the ground when we die, so that connects us to the earth. If you dump trash, you're dumping it on your and my ancestors. Or to bring it down to its simplest level: treat everything and everybody the way you want to be treated, because when you hurt someone, you're only hurting yourself. — Charles De Lint

I believe in a different kind of magic. The kind we make between each other. — Charles De Lint

The real trouble comes from not knowing what we really want in the first place. — Charles De Lint

There's more to life than just surviving ... but ... sometimes just surviving is all you get — Charles De Lint

Labels don't mean much to me one way or another
except when they close the minds of potential readers. I'd much rather we do away with genres and simply file everything under fiction. I know it can work
one of my favourite record stores (Waterloo Music in Austin) simply files everything alphabetically and no one seems to have much problem finding what they're looking for. — Charles De Lint

The thing to remember when you're writing," he said, " is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader. I don't care what literary device you might use, or belief systems you tap into
if you can make a story true for the reader, if you can give them a glimpse into another way of seeing the world, or another way that they can cope with their problems, then that story is a succes. — Charles De Lint

You've got to find yourself first. Everything else'll follow. — Charles De Lint

If you cherish something enough", she told me, "it doesn't matter how old or worn or useless it's become; your caring for it immediately raises its value in somebody else's eyes. It's just like rehab- a body's got to believe in their own worth before anybody can start fixing them, but most people need someone to believe in them before they can start believing in themselves. — Charles De Lint

Every time we fix something that broken, whether it's a car engine or a broken heart, that an act of magic. And what makes it magic is that we choose to create or help, just as we can choose to harm. — Charles De Lint

The problem with children is that you have to put up with their parents. — Charles De Lint

You can take the woman outta the trash, but you can't take the trash out a the woman. — Charles De Lint

The only real reason for self-referencing is the fun factor. It's fun for the writer, getting little peeks at what old characters might be up to. And it's fun for readers to spot a familiar face, or pick up on a made-up book title or something from an earlier story. I don't know that it does
or even should
contribute to the story in hand being any better than it would have been without it. — Charles De Lint

It seems like I always wrote, I just didn't think of it as a career choice. I just liked to tell stories ... to myself, to pen pals (I had a lot of them, all over the world). Of course this was in the days before computers were everywhere, and anyone could access the Web. You had to make an effort keeping up a correspondence, and the arrival of the mail once a day was a big deal. I think if modern technology had been around when I was a kid, I would never have left my bedroom except to take the dogs out for their run three times a day. — Charles De Lint

I realize that for all my penchant in believing that there's more to the world than what we can see, that folk tales and fairy tales are based on real, if forgotten events, I never accepted that part of it as being real. — Charles De Lint

Sculptors, poets, painters, musicians-they're the traditional purveyors of Beauty. But it can as easily be created by a gardener, a farmer, a plumber, a careworker. — Charles De Lint

T.H. moved through the forest like the melody of a well-known song, in perfect harmony with his surroundings. — Charles De Lint

Writing music uses a whole different process that involves a lot of noodling and just seeing what comes. — Charles De Lint

I've always believed the lies we use to make our fictions reveal the truth with far more honesty than any history or herstory or life story. — Charles De Lint

A long time ago a bunch of people reached a general consensus as to what's real and what's not and most of us have been going along with it ever since. — Charles De Lint

You hear this kind of thing, rednecks and their guys and--"
"Don't call them that," I say. "They're just assholes. Most people you run into around here...well, maybe they won't like the length of your hair, but they'll keep their feelings to themselves. — Charles De Lint

It's the questions we ask, the journey we take to get to where we are going that is more important than the actual answer. — Charles De Lint

living in an environment I can't control doesn't scare me. I'm partial to the surprises. — Charles De Lint

We call them faerie. We don't believe in them. Our loss. — Charles De Lint

There's never an easy route to the things that matter. — Charles De Lint

Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known? — Charles De Lint

The trouble with advice is that it's usually something you don't want to hear. — Charles De Lint

Though the three of them were unrelated by blood, they were sisters all the same. In the heart, where it mattered. — Charles De Lint

As the new work fills my notebooks, I've come to realize that the characters in my stories were so real because I really did want to get close to people, I really did want to know them. It was just easier to do it on paper, one step removed. — Charles De Lint

There's no such thing as fiction", Annie told him once. "If you can imagine something, then it's happened. — Charles De Lint

All my life I've wanted to be the kid who gets to cross over into the magical kingdom. — Charles De Lint

There are few joys to compare with the telling of a well-told tale. — Charles De Lint

I finally figured out that I'm solitary by nature, but at the same time I know so many people; so many people think they own a piece of me. They shift and move under my skin, like a parade of memories that simply won't go away. It doesn't matter where I am, or how alone
I always have such a crowded head. — Charles De Lint

The past scampers like an alley cat through the present, leaving the paw prints of memories scattered helter-skelter. — Charles De Lint

Under the skin, intense fires burn. — Charles De Lint

Books and music saved me as a teenager because it was through them that I realized that I wasn't alone in my obsessive love for words and music. — Charles De Lint

Magic lies in between things, between the day and the night, between yellow and blue, between any two things. — Charles De Lint

He had too much cat in his blood - a deep-rooted feline twitch that would travel the length of his nerves to tickle his mind at the faintest sign of a mystery, no matter how small. He could no more let a riddle go unsolved than he could pass by the perfect length of colourful wire without picking it up. — Charles De Lint

I don't want to live in the kind of world where we don't look out for each other. Not just the people that are close to us, but anybody who needs a helping hand. I cant change the way anybody else thinks, or what they choose to do, but I can do my bit. — Charles De Lint

By enlarging your knowledge of things, you will find your knowledge of self is enlarged. — Charles De Lint

It's not all about getting your own way. Sometimes there's a bigger picture. — Charles De Lint

I'd say that any character or setting can be given a bit of an otherworldly sheen and be the better for it. The one thing I insist on with my own writing is that I won't let magic solve my characters' real world problems. The solutions have to come from the characters themselves. — Charles De Lint

The best artists know what to leave out. — Charles De Lint

Like legend and myth, magic fades when it is unused
hence all the old tales of elfin kingdoms moving further and further away from our world, or that magical beings require our faith, our belief in their existence, to survive. That is a lie. All they require is our recognition. — Charles De Lint

It's all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses. — Charles De Lint

I love this world," he added. "That is what rules my life. When I die, I want to have done all in my power to leave it in a better state than it was when I found it. At the same time I know that this can never be. The world has grown so complex that one voice can do little to alter it any longer. That doesn't stop me from doing what I can, but it makes the task hard. The successes are so small, the failures so large and many. It's like trying to stem a storm with one's bare hands. — Charles De Lint

The excitement I get from writing is finding out each day what happens next. — Charles De Lint

The few wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them. — Charles De Lint

To me there's no difference between writing YA and adult except that in YA I make the book a little shorter and the protagonists are teens. The difference is in the readers. — Charles De Lint

She wanted to tell him what happened wasn't really his fault, but she knew that wasn't the way this kind of guilt worked. Intellectually, he already knew that. It was his emotions that were tripping him up. The tangle of love and memory and what might have been. — Charles De Lint

[She] had felt straight away that she wasn't meeting a new friend, but recognizing an old one. — Charles De Lint

When one of my characters becomes aware of a magical element, it might be because the world is wider than we assume it to be, but it might also be a reminder to pay attention to what is here already, hidden only because it's been forgotten. — Charles De Lint

You wouldn't want any creative process to lose its sense of fun and adventure, but that doesn't mean you can't take it seriously as well. — Charles De Lint

The thing I like so much about short stories is that there isn't as much of an investment of time so I'm free to experiment more. If it doesn't work out, I've only lost a week or two of work. If I screw up a novel I've lost at least a year's worth of work. But the nice thing is that those experiments with short stories can be carried over to novels when the experiments do work. — Charles De Lint

You can't stand up to the night until you understand what's hiding in its shadows. — Charles De Lint

I always feel that there is a curtain, you know, that if I could just peek behind the curtain I'd see how the world really works. And since I haven't had it I have to write about it instead. — Charles De Lint

Most children are given far too much praise for their early drawings, so much so that they rarely learn the ability to refine their first crude efforts the way their early attempts at language are corrected. — Charles De Lint

It's good to have mysteries. It reminds us that there's more to the world than just making do and having a bit of fun. — Charles De Lint

Every time you do a good deed you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, when you're gone that light is going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back. — Charles De Lint

There was nothing wrong with being a homebody. There was nothing wrong with not wanting - not needing - the constant jostle and noise of a party or bar or... whatever. — Charles De Lint

I don't actually talk about my books much, because I find if I talk about them I don't want to write them anymore. I write to find out what happens. You know how you read a book? That's what I'm doing except I'm just doing it a lot slower because it takes a lot longer to do. — Charles De Lint

I don't think the world works on merit. — Charles De Lint

I envy the music lovers hear. I see them walking hand in hand, standing close to each other in a queue at a theater or subway station, heads touching while they sit on a park bench, and I ache to hear the song that plays between them: The stirring chords of romance's first bloom, the stately airs that whisper between a couple long in love. You can see it in the way they look at each other ... you can almost hear it. Almost, but not quite, because the music belongs to them and all you can have of it is a vague echo that rises up from the bittersweet murmur and shuffle of your own memories. — Charles De Lint

Gina always believed there was magic in the world. "But it doesn't work in the way it does in fairy tales," she told me. "It doesn't save us. We have to save ourselves. — Charles De Lint

Beauty isn't what you see on TV or in magazine ads or even necessarily in art galleries. It's a lot deeper and a lot simpler than that. It's realizing the goodness of things, it's leaving the world a little better than it was before you got here. It's appreciating the inspiration of the world around you and trying to inspire others. — Charles De Lint

The thing with pretending you're in a good mood is that sometimes you can. — Charles De Lint

Look inside yourself for the answers - you're the only one who knows what's best for you. Everybody else is only guessing. — Charles De Lint

From the first time he'd met her, he'd sensed an air of contradiction about her. She was very much a woman, but still retained a waiflike quality. She could be brash, and at times deliberately suggestive, yet she was painfully shy. She was incredibly easy to get along with, yet she had few friends. She was a talented artist in her own right, but so self-conscious about her work that she rarely completed a piece and preferred to work with other people's art and ideas ... — Charles De Lint

I read and write for character. If I like and can relate to the characters in a story I can enjoy any kind of story. I also want something with a definitive plot - you know, beginning, middle and end--that has forward motion. I don't like series books that leave you hanging after you've finished a book and in my own fiction I try to make sure that there's always an entry point for those who are new to the book as well as long-time readers. — Charles De Lint

It was all cheese and applause. — Charles De Lint

Every book tells a different story to the person who reads it. How they perceive that book will depend on who they are. A good book reflects the reader, as much as it illuminates the author's text. — Charles De Lint

You don't have to be Michelangelo to teach basic art, just as you don't have to be Shakespeare to be able to teach the correct use of language. — Charles De Lint

The more she tried to recapture the impulse that had set her wanting to put pen to paper, the less it seemed to have ever existed in the first place. — Charles De Lint

I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. Or under a hill. I want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. I don't want to pretend at magic anymore. I want to be magic. — Charles De Lint

It is so easy for your people to forget that everything has a spirit, that all are equal. That magic and mystery are a part of your lives, not something to store away in a child's bedroom, or to use as an escape from your lives. — Charles De Lint

I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. — Charles De Lint

I write on a computer, but I've run the complete gambit. When I was very young, I wrote with a ballpoint pen in school notebooks. Then I got pretentious and started writing with a dip pen on parchment (I wrote at least a novel-length poem that way). Moved on to a fountain pen. Then a typewriter, then an electric self-correct. Then someone gave me a word processor and I was amazed at being able to fit ten pages on one of those floppy discs. — Charles De Lint

If all the darkness each of us carries within us, all our angers and unhappiness and bad moments were pulled out of us and given shape, we would all create monsters. — Charles De Lint

Fortune-telling doesn't reveal the future; it mirrors the present. It resonates against what your subconscious already knows and hauls it up out of the darkness so you can get a good look at it. — Charles De Lint

What we take from the spirit world is only a reflection of what lies inside ourselves. — Charles De Lint

Everybody's got a true home - maybe not where they're living, but
where their heart lives. — Charles De Lint

Life is like art. You have to work hard to keep it simple and still have meaning. — Charles De Lint

There's nothing wrong with a youthful prospective. Don't forget- no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories you have to tell. — Charles De Lint

Often the magical elements in my books are standing in for elements of the real world, the small and magical-in-their-own-right sorts of things that we take for granted and no longer pay attention to, like the bonds of friendship that entwine our own lives with those of other people and places. — Charles De Lint

Living on the street as a kid changed the way I looked at everything. It was a different time and while it had its dangers, it was nothing like it would be today. It was the Summer of Love and there was a real sense of community among us. We were hippies who looked out for each other instead of trying to rip each other off. We only had to watch out for the police who liked to roust us just on general principles, and the kids who came in from the suburbs to do a little hippie-bashing. — Charles De Lint

The faerie represent the beauty we don't see, or even choose to ignore. That's why I'll paint them in junkyards, or fluttering around a sleeping wino. No place or person is immune to spirit. Look hard enough, and everything has a story. Everybody is important.- Jilly Coppercorn — Charles De Lint

Music's the soundtrack of my life and has been since I was a teenager. There's always music. If I'm not playing it, I'm listening to it. With my writing ... sometimes it inspires a story, sometimes it highlights something I'm working on, sometimes it simply helps me stay in the narrative mood. — Charles De Lint

I think you're all mad. But that's part and parcel of being an artistic genius, isn't it? — Charles De Lint

My theory about writing is that one should write books you'd like to read, but no one else has written yet. So, as long as I stick with that, I'm entertaining myself, and then hopefully my readers as well. I hope to god I realize that I'm repeating myself, if I ever do. But if I don't, I'm sure my readers will let me know. — Charles De Lint

You walk around with a negative attitude and you're just naturally going to bring trouble and hard times down on yourself. — Charles De Lint

There were two forests for every one you entered. There was the one you walked in, the physical echo, and then there was the one that was connected to all the other forests, with no consideration of distance, or time. The forest primeval, remembered through the collective memory of every tree in the same way that people remembered myth- through the collective subconscious that Jung mapped, the shared mythic resonance that lay buried in every human mind. Legend and myth, all tangled in an alphabet of trees remembered, not always with understanding, but with wonder. With awe. — Charles De Lint

That's the thing about magic; you've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you. — Charles De Lint

We're so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, incessantly editing who we are until we fit in. — Charles De Lint

But that's what we all are-just stories. We only exist by how people remember us, by the stories we make of our lives. Without the stories, we'd just fade away. — Charles De Lint