Canadian writer (1951- )
We chase after ghosts and spirits and are left holding only memories and dreams. It's not that we want what we can't have; it's that we've held all we could want and then had to watch it slip away.
CHARLES DE LINT
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Moonlight & Vines
You just have to pay attention. If you don't, you'll miss them, or see something else--something you expected to see rather than what was really there. Faerie voices become just the wind, a bodach ... scurrying across the street becomes just a piece of litter caught in the backwash of a bus.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
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
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
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
What I want to do is travel deep and deeper into the dreamlands, to find that place that I know is waiting for me here. My home.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
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
I guess there must be some good foster parents, but I never saw any. All mine ever wanted was to collect their checks and treat me like I was a piece of shit unless my case worker was coming by for a visit. Then I got moved up from the mattress in the basement to one of their kids' rooms.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
What we take from the spirit world is only a reflection of what lies inside ourselves.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Waifs and Strays", 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
If I pick up a wooden flute that hasn't been played for a year, it doesn't sound great at all. It's not only a matter of me being out of practice, because I could be playing one of my other flutes that I play more often and they will sound noticeably better, but the wood itself has a memory of sorts, and needs frequent playing to maintain its warmth and resonance. With writing, it really makes a huge difference if I don't write for three or four days because I will start to lose the flow of the particular story I'm working on. When that happens, I have to go back to the beginning of the book and put it all back into my head again.
CHARLES DE LINT
Locus Magazine, June 2003
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
I think a good writer is a mix of confidence (sure that what they're writing is going to appeal to their readers) and uncertainty (what if all these words are crap?). If you're too confident, you get an attitude that seeps through into your writing, affecting the characters and the story. If you're too uncertain, you'll never finish anything.
CHARLES DE LINT
interview with Kim Antieau, April 28, 2008
There's more to life than just surviving ... but ... sometimes just surviving is all you get.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
There's never an easy route to the things that matter.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
I find the characters in my head and the more I write about them, the better I get to know them.
CHARLES DE LINT
Green Man Review, October 2006
Magic's never what you expect it to be, but it's often what you need.
CHARLES DE LINT
Moonlight and Vines
Living on the street as a kid changed the way I looked at everything. It was a different time and while it had its dangers, it was nothing like it would be today. It was the Summer of Love and there was a real sense of community among us. We were hippies who looked out for each other instead of trying to rip each other off. We only had to watch out for the police who liked to roust us just on general principles, and the kids who came in from the suburbs to do a little hippie-bashing.
CHARLES DE LINT
"One Thing Leads to Another: An Interview with Charles de Lint", The Yalsa Hub, September 19, 2013
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
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.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Journal Entries", Memory and Dream