quotes by Charles de Lint

"We're all made of stories. When they finally put us underground, the stories are what will go on. Not forever, perhaps, but for a time. It's a kind of immortality, I suppose, bounded by limits, it's true, but then so's everything."
— Charles de Lint

"Everytime you do a good deed you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, when youre gone that light is going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back. "
— 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

"There's stories and then there's stories. The ones with any worth change your life forever, perhaps only in a small way, but once you've heard them, they are forever a part of you. You nurture them and pass them on, and the giving only makes you feel better. The others are just words on a page."
— Charles de Lint (Dreams Underfoot (Newford Book 1))

"Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?"
— 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 (Memory and Dream (Newford Book 5))

"All my life I've wanted to be the kid who gets to cross over into the magical kingdom. I devoured those books by C.S. Lewis and William Dunthorn, Ellen Wentworth, Susan Cooper, and Alan Garner. When I could get them from the library, I read them out of order as I found them, and then in order, and then reread them all again, many times over. Because even when I was a child I knew it wasn't simply escape that lay on the far side of the borders of fairyland. Instinctively I knew crossing over would mean more than fleeing the constant terror and shame that was mine at that time of my life. There was a knowledge – an understanding hidden in the marrow of my bones that only I can access ― telling me that by crossing over, I'd be coming home.
That's the reason I’ve yearned so desperately to experience the wonder, the mystery, the beauty of that world beyond the World As It Is. It's because I know that somewhere across the border there's a place for me. A place of safety and strength and learning, where I can become who I'm supposed to be. I've tried forever to be that person here, but whatever I manage to accomplish in the World As It Is only seems to be an echo of what I could be in that other place that lies hidden somewhere beyond the borders."
— 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

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

"I... believe in an everyday sort of magic -- the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of syncronicity..."
— Charles de Lint

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

"The stronger a woman gets, the more insecure the men in her life feel. It doesn’t work that way for a woman. We celebrate strength--in our partners as well as in ourselves."
— Charles de Lint (Memory and Dream (Newford Book 5))

"I do believe in an everyday sort of magic -- the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of syncronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone."
— Charles de Lint

"She knew this music--knew it down to the very core of her being--but she had never heard it before. Unfamiliar, it had still always been there inside her, waiting to be woken. It grew from the core of mystery that gives a secret its special delight, religion its awe. It demanded to be accepted by simple faith, not dissected or questioned, and at the same time, it begged to be doubted and probed."
— Charles de Lint (The Little Country)

"[She] had felt straight away that she wasn’t meeting a new friend, but recognizing an old one."
— Charles de Lint (Memory and Dream (Newford Book 5))

"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

"Witchery is merely a word for what we are all capable of.
"
— 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 (Jack of Kinrowan: Jack the Giant-Killer and Drink Down the Moon)

""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 Little Country)

"It is important to know what a person was. But it's more important to know what they are now."
— Charles de Lint (Greenmantle)

"There are no happy endings... There are no endings, happy or otherwise. We all have our own stories which are just part of the one Story that binds both this world and Faerie. Sometimes we step into each others stories - perhaps just for a few minutes, perhaps for years - and then we step out of them again. But all the while, the Story just goes on."
— Charles de Lint (Dreams Underfoot (Newford Book 1))

"'I'm not...' Angharad began, but then she thought. Not what? Not a bad person? Perhaps. But had she never known anger? Never held unkind thoughts? The stranger's observation was valid. No one was innocent of darkness."
— Charles de Lint (Into the Green)

"It was all cheese and applause."
— Charles de Lint (Widdershins (Newford Book 16))

"People want to know those details. They think it gives them greater insight into a piece of art, but when they approach a painting in such a manner, they are belittling both the artist’s work and their own ability to experience it. Each painting I do says everything I want to say on its subject and in terms of that painting, and not all the trivia in the world concerning my private life will give the viewer more insight into it than what hangs there before their eyes. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, even titling a work is an unnecessary concession."
— Charles de Lint (Memory and Dream (Newford Book 5))

"But what the evil people do, that's their responsibility. The burden they have to carry. Sure, when we see 'em starting on causing some hurt, we've got to try and stop 'em, but mostly what the rest of us should be concerning ourselves with is doing right by others. Every time you do a good turn, you shine the light a little further into the dark. And the thing is, even when we're gone, that light's going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back."
— Charles de Lint (Someplace to Be Flying (Newford Book 8))

"Even, she thought, even without the gift of witchsight, there was more beauty to be found in the world than could ever be snared in language or music. And with the sight..."
— Charles de Lint

"There was too much going on here -- too much that strayed from odd all the way over into seriously weird."
— Charles de Lint (Someplace to Be Flying (Newford Book 8))

"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 (Memory and Dream (Newford Book 5))

""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

" "Everybody has a soul." I turn to Pelly. "And that means you, too."
"I'm not so sure of that," he says. "What does it feel like?"
"Having a soul?" I look at Maxine, but she only shrugs. "I don't know," I tell Pelly. "I don't have anything to compare it to- you know, what not having a sould would feel like."
We fall into a kind of awkward silence. I don't know about the others, but I'm working on what a soul is and not coming up with a whole lot. I mean, I just always thought of it as me- what I feel like being me. But surely Pelly feels like himself, so that means he's got a soul right? But if that's not your soul, then what is?
It's weird and not something you really think about, is it?
"
— Charles de Lint (The Blue Girl)

"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 (Memory and Dream (Newford Book 5))

"It reminded me of that tongue-in-cheek quick history of art I'd overheard...Used to be people couldn't draw very well, then they could, and now they can't again."
— Charles de Lint (Medicine Road (Newford Book 14))

"Don't forget - no one else sees teh world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell."
— Charles de Lint (The Blue Girl)

"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)

"There are no happy endings... There are no real endings ever - happy or otherwise. We all have our own stories which are just part of the one Story that binds both this world and Faerie. Sometimes we step into each others stories - perhaps just for a few minutes, perhaps for years - and then we step out of them again. But all the while, the Story just goes on."
— Charles de Lint (Dreams Underfoot (Newford Book 1))

"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 (Dreams Underfoot (Newford Book 1))

"The fey wonders of the world can only exist while there are those with the sight to see them."
— Charles de Lint

"It was all cheese and applause."
— Charles de Lint

"It reminded me of that tongue-in-cheek quick history of art I'd overheard...Used to be people couldn't draw very well, then they could, and now they can't again."
— Charles de Lint (Medicine Road (Newford Book 14))