Charles de Lint Quotes
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I was going through the motions of life, instead of really living, and there’s no excuse for that. It’s not something I’ll let happen to me again.
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Witchery is merely a word for what we are all capable of.
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You can talk all you want about consensual reality, Jilly, but that doesn’t change the fact that some things are real and some things aren’t. There’s a line drawn between the two that separates reality from fantasy.
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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.
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The best artists know what to leave out.
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Nothing’s different, but everything has changed.
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'You’re confusing me.''But not deliberately so,' Coyote says. 'Let it go on record that any confusion arose simply because we lacked certain commonalities of reference.'
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Like legend and myth, magic fades when it is unused - hence all the old tales of elfin Kingdoms moving further and further away from our world, or that magical beings require our faith, our belief in their existence, to survive. … That is a lie. All they require is our recognition.
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The thing with pretending you're in a good mood is that sometimes you can.
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Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors.
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Often the magical elements in my books are standing in for elements of the real world, the small and magical-in-their-own-right sorts of things that we take for granted and no longer pay attention to, like the bonds of friendship that entwine our own lives with those of other people and places.
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'Compromise is necessary,' Max agreed, 'so long as you never give up who you are. That isn’t compromise; that’s spiritual death. You have to remain true to yourself.'
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When one of my characters becomes aware of a magical element, it might be because the world is wider than we assume it to be, but it might also be a reminder to pay attention to what is here already, hidden only because it's been forgotten.
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If you're not ready to die, then how can you live?
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'Often,' he says, 'what we take from the spirit world is only a reflection of what lies inside ourselves.'
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He had seen trances before - wise men far in the east, who could feign death; a herbwife as she bent over her patient, searching for invisible hurts. But this was different. He could sense something here, within the circle cast by the light of the fire. A presence. Presences...
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One expected growth, change; without it, the world was less, the well of inspiration dried up, the muses fled.
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I've always believed the lies we use to make our fictions reveal the truth with far more honesty than any history or herstory or life story.
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When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it.
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The few wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them.
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As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between fact and what most people call fiction is about fifteen pages in the dictionary.
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Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?
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Not everything has to mean something. Some things just are.
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I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile.