Canadian writer (1951- )
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
"Paperjack", Dreams Underfoot: The Newford Collection
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
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
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
"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
You can take the woman outta the trash, but you can't take the trash out a the woman.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
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
I'm really bad at describing my books. Journalists like to have things like "It's The Terminator Meets the Seven Dwarfs." And I can't do that with my books. If I could, I probably wouldn't write them.
CHARLES DE LINT
interview, Challenging Destiny, Number 9
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
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
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
Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors.
CHARLES DE LINT
Moonheart
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
You can't stand up to the night until you understand what's hiding in its shadows.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
Tattoos ... are the stories in your heart, written on your skin.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Mystery of Grace
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
A body of work may be reviled -- mostly by those who have no knowledge of its workings -- and yet still carry elements of what can only be considered eternal truths.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Little Country
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
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
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