CHARLES DE LINT QUOTES

Canadian writer (1951- )

Charles de Lint quote

God doesn't do anything to us. He doesn't have to. We're too busy doing it to each other.

CHARLES DE LINT

The Onion Girl

Tags: God


One cannot seek to uphold honor in a being that has none.

CHARLES DE LINT

Moonheart

Tags: honor


I like living in the city where I have all my books and music and can go out to buy that night's dinner or easily see a band. But I also like the wild places, especially hiking in the desert and the Eastern woodlands. Do I have to choose?

CHARLES DE LINT

interview with Kim Antieau, April 28, 2008


You know how we'd get along better? If everybody'd just remember how we're all related. White, black, Asian, skin. No difference. All the bloodlines go back to that one old mama in Africa.

CHARLES DE LINT

The Onion Girl


The thing with pretending you're in a good mood is that sometimes you can actually trick yourself into feeling better.

CHARLES DE LINT

"Journal Entries", Memory and Dream


People didn't realize it, but they needed myths to survive, just as much now as when their forebears were alive. Perhaps more. Mythology embodied the world's dreams, helped to make sense of the great human problems. Just as the dreams of individuals exist to give subconscious support to their conscious lives, so do myths serve as society's dreams. They uncover the dark, hidden places where mysteries dwell and can turn to nightmare if left untended. They make sense of injustice in archetypal terms. They give men and women a blueprint for how they may respond to success or failure, tragedy or joy.

CHARLES DE LINT

I'll Be Watching You

Tags: mythology


Don't forget -- no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.

CHARLES DE LINT

The Blue Girl


Fairy tales and mythology have always been an exaggerated distillation of the real world. Think of them as blueprints for how to deal with a multitude of situations that can arise in a person's life. The beauty of them is that their analogies resonate so deeply and they also entertain while they teach.

CHARLES DE LINT

"One Thing Leads to Another: An Interview with Charles de Lint", The Yalsa Hub, September 19, 2013


Magic lies in between things, between the day and the night, between yellow and blue, between any two things.

CHARLES DE LINT

The Onion Girl


Children are the brightest treasures we bring forth into this world, but too large a percentage of the population continues to treat them as inconveniences and nuisances, when they're not treating them as possessions or toys.

CHARLES DE LINT

The Onion Girl

Tags: children


The thing to remember when you're writing is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader.

CHARLES DE LINT

The Blue Girl

Tags: truth


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

Someplace to Be Flying


As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between fact and what most people call fiction is about fifteen pages in the dictionary.

CHARLES DE LINT

"Tallulah", Dreams Underfoot: The Newford Collection

Tags: facts


Well, while I didn't have the more extreme experiences of some of my characters, I didn't exactly come from the most normal of households. Or rather, it was normal, in that dysfunctional families appear to be the norm.

CHARLES DE LINT

"A Conversation With Charles de Lint", SFsite, 2000


The fey wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them.

CHARLES DE LINT

Into the Green


I had the same questions for Superman as I did for God: If he was so powerful, why didn't he deal with some real problems? Why didn't he stop wars, feed the starving in Ethiopia, cure cancer? At least God had the Church to do His PR work for Him -- if you can buy their reasoning, they have any number of explanations ranging from how the troubles of this life build character to that inarguable catchall, "God's will." And the crap in this life sure makes heaven look good. When I was growing up, the writers and artists of Superman never even tried to deal with the problem. And since they didn't, I could only see Superman as a monster, not a hero. I couldn't believe his battles with criminals, superpowered geniuses and the like. I never believed in God either.

CHARLES DE LINT

"Bird Bones and Wood Ash", The Ivory and the Horn

Tags: God


I don't think the world works on merit.

CHARLES DE LINT

The Onion Girl


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

Happily Ever After

Tags: identity


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

CHARLES DE LINT

The Onion Girl

Tags: past


In the dark attics of our minds, all times mingle.

CHARLES DE LINT

The Onion Girl

Tags: time