Charles De Lint Quotes

The problem with children is that you have to put up with their parents.

Wondering’s healthy. Broadens the mind. Opens you up to all sorts of stray thoughts and possibilities.

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.

As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between fact and what most people call fiction is about fifteen pages in the dictionary.

When you're invisible, no one can see that you're different.

An now the silences come in a single lifetime, in a single year... when species die, leaving a silent space in the world song that can never be filled.

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.

But that's what we all are-just stories. We only exist by how people remember us, by the stories we make of our lives. Without the stories, we'd just fade away.

You wouldn't want any creative process to lose its sense of fun and adventure, but that doesn't mean you can't take it seriously as well.

You don't have to be Michelangelo to teach basic art, just as you don't have to be Shakespeare to be able to teach the correct use of language.

One expected growth, change; without it, the world was less, the well of inspiration dried up, the muses fled.

The trouble with advice is that it's usually something you don't want to hear.

"... he had understood, better than anyone ... the beauty that grew out of the simple knowledge that everything, no matter how small or large it might be, was a perfect example of what it was."

I think you're all mad. But that's part and parcel of being an artistic genius, isn't it?

Everything is the way it is because we've all agreed that's the way it is.

I've always been interested in the outsider.

The past scampers like an alley cat through the present, leaving the paw prints of memories scattered helter-skelter.

The family we choose for ourselves is more important than the one we were born into; that people have to earn our respect and trust, not have it handed to them simply because of genetics.

Not everything has to mean something. Some things just are.

It's not all about getting your own way. Sometimes there's a bigger picture.

Like legend and myth, magic fades when it is unused.

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.

Inside us lies every possibility that is available to a sentient being. Every darkness, every light. It is the choices we make that decide who or what we will be.

Once upon a time there was what there was, and if nothing had happened there would be nothing to tell.

Compromise is necessary 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.

There was too much going on here -- too much that strayed from odd all the way over into seriously weird.

By enlarging your knowledge of things, you will find your knowledge of self is enlarged.

What we take from the spirit world is only a reflection of what lies inside ourselves.

The moon likes secrets," Meran said. "And secret things. She lets mysteries bleed into her shadows and leaves us to ask whether they originated from otherworlds, or from our own imaginations.

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.

In the dark attics of our minds, all times mingle.

You can take the woman outta the trash, but you can't take the trash out a the woman.

There is no plan, no future laid out for any of us beyond what we make for ourselves.

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.

[She] had felt straight away that she wasn’t meeting a new friend, but recognizing an old one.

You've got to spread out as far as you can, cut down a whole forest, irrigate a whole desert, just to make sure that you won't accidentally stumble upon a place that's still in its natural state.

The real trouble comes from not knowing what we really want in the first place.

I've always known and been interested in people who are a little bit off the norm. I like to call attention to the idea that they are there, that they are real people, not invisible.

All my life I've wanted to be the kid who gets to cross over into the magical kingdom.

Lies were like having a pregnant rabbit. One day you had one, but before you knew it, there were rabbits all over the place.

Ghosts were just a way that some stupid people dealt with their dull lives.

Well, you know this world isn't perfect.' 'No, you're wrong. This world IS perfect, people just come along and mess it up sometimes.

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.

Wisdom never comes to those who believe they have nothing left to learn.

Let it go on record that any confusion arose simply because we lacked certain commonalities of reference.

Sculptors, poets, painters, musicians-they're the traditional purveyors of Beauty. But it can as easily be created by a gardener, a farmer, a plumber, a careworker.

Dying doesn't end anything - it just changes where you are

It is important to know what a person was. But it's more important to know what they are now.

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.

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.