Canadian writer (1951- )
Only fools think they're wise; the rest of us just muddle through as we can.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night", The Ivory and the Horn
The trouble with magic is that there's too much it just can't fix. When things go wrong, glimpsing junkyard faerie and crows that can turn into girls and back again doesn't help much. The useful magic's never at hand. The three wishes and the genies in bottles, seven-league boots, invisible cloaks and all. They stay in the stories, while out here in the wide world we have to muddle through as best we can on our own.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
People who've never read fairy tales ... have a harder time coping in life than the people who have. They don't have access to all the lessons that can be learned from the journeys through the dark woods and the kindness of strangers treated decently, the knowledge that can be gained from the company and example of Donkeyskins and cats wearing boots and steadfast tin soldiers. I'm not talking about in-your-face lessons, but more subtle ones. The kind that seep up from your subconscious and give you moral and humane structures for your life. That teach you how to prevail, and trust. And maybe even to love.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
I don't know what's waiting for us when we die--something better, something worse. I only know I'm not ready to find out yet.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
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
"Paperjack", Dreams Underfoot: The Newford Collection
I've always been aware of the otherworld, of spirits that exist in that twilight place that lies in the corner of our eyes, of fairie and stranger things still that we spy only when we're not really paying attention to them, whispers and flickering shadows, here one moment, gone the instant we turn our heads for a closer look. But I couldn't always find them. And when I did, for a long time I thought they were only this excess of imagination that I carry around inside me, that somehow it was leaking out of me into the world.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
You can't stand up to the night until you understand what's hiding in its shadows.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
That dichotomy between who she was and who she thought she should be was what really killed her.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Pal o' Mine", The Ivory and the Horn
If you're not ready to die, then how can you live?
CHARLES DE LINT
Svaha
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
Green Man Review, October 2006
Once upon a time there was what there was, and if nothing had happened there would be nothing to tell.
CHARLES DE LINT
Dreams Underfoot
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
"Music and Myth: A Conversation with Charles de Lint", The Internet Review of Science Fiction
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
"One Thing Leads to Another: An Interview with Charles de Lint", The Yalsa Hub, September 19, 2013
The real trouble comes from not knowing what we really want in the first place.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night", The Ivory and the Horn
We end up stumbling our way through the forest, never seeing all the unexpected and wonderful possibilities and potentials because we're looking for the idea of a tree, instead of appreciating the actual trees in front of us.
CHARLES DE LINT
Tapping the Dream Tree
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
"A Conversation With Charles de Lint", SFsite, 2000
When you're touched by magic, nothing's ever quite the same again. What really makes me sad is all those people who never have the chance to know that touch. They're too busy, or they just don't hold with make-believe, so they shut the door without really knowing it was there to be opened in the first place.
CHARLES DE LINT
What the Mouse Found and Other Stories
The family we choose for ourselves is more important than the one we were born into ... people have to earn our respect and trust, not have it handed to them simply because of genetics.
CHARLES DE LINT
Moonlight & Vines
Let me give you some advice: Try to approach things without preconceived ideas, without supposing you already know everything there is to know about them. Get that trick down and you'll be surprised at what's really all around you.
CHARLES DE LINT
Someplace to Be Flying
There's never an easy route to the things that matter.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl