Canadian writer (1951- )
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'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
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
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
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
Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors.
CHARLES DE LINT
Moonheart
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
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
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
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
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
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
You can't stand up to the night until you understand what's hiding in its shadows.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
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
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