Charles de Lint

Writer

1951-12-22

Quotes by Charles de Lint

• There's no such thing as fiction, Annie told him once. If you can imagine something, then it's happened.

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

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• The real difference is that with fantasy— and by that I mean fantasy which can simultaneously tap into a cosmopolitan commonality at the same time as it springs from an individual and unique perspective. In this sort of fantasy, a mythic resonance lingers on— an harmonious vibration that builds in potency the longer one considers it, rather than fading away when the final page is read and the book is put away. Characters discovered in such writing are pulled from our own inner landscapes... and then set out upon the stories' various stages so that as we learn to understand them a little better, both the monsters and the angels, we come to understand ourselves a little better as well.

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• 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.

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• Everybody's got a true home— maybe not where they're living, butwhere their heart lives.

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• Don't forget - no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.

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• T.H. moved through the forest like the melody of a well-known song, in perfect harmony with his surroundings.

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• 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.

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• So she goes to see the Old Man of the Mountains–looks just like you, Bear. Same face, same hair. A big old bear, sitting up there on the top of the mountain, looking out at everything below. Doesn't smile so much, but understands how everybody's got a secret dark place sits way deep down there inside, hidden but wanting to get out. Understands how you can be happy but not happy at the same time. Understands that sometimes you feel you got to go all the way out to get back in, but if you do, you can't. There's no way back in.

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• 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 synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone.

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• 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?

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• The best change you can make is to hold up a mirror so that people can look into it and change themselves. That's the only way a person can be changed.By looking into yourself, Zia said. Even if you have to look into a mirror that's outside yourself to do it.And you know, Maida added. That mirror can be a story you hear, or just someone else's eyes. Anything that reflects back so you can see yourself in it.

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• 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.

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• As the new work fills my notebooks, I've come to realize that the characters in my stories were so real because I really did want to get close to people, I really did want to know them. It was just easier to do it on paper, one step removed.

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• A name can't begin to encompass the sum of all her parts. But that's the magic of names, isn't it? That the complex, contradictory individuals we are can be called up complete and whole in another mind through the simple sorcery of a name.

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• I read and write for character. If I like and can relate to the characters in a story I can enjoy any kind of story. I also want something with a definitive plot— you know, beginning, middle and end--that has forward motion. I don't like series books that leave you hanging after you've finished a book and in my own fiction I try to make sure that there's always an entry point for those who are new to the book as well as long-time readers.

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• But if I could just get som ehint, some sign... Conchita smiles, without humor, but with great affection. That's the point behind faith, she says. It's not something you can prove....I know you hate to hear this, but you either have it, or you don't.

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• I'm a writer and this is what I do no matter what name we put to it. Year by year, the world is turning into a darker and stranger place than any of us could want. This is the only thing I do that has potential to shine a little further than my immediate surroundings. For me, each story is a little candle held up to the dark of night, trying to illuminate the hope for a better world where we all respect and care for each other.

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• Every time you do a good deed you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, when you're gone that light is going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back.

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• I don't want to live in the kind of world where we don't look out for each other. Not just the people that are close to us, but anybody who needs a helping hand. I cant change the way anybody else thinks, or what they choose to do, but I can do my bit.

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