Quotes by Charles de Lint

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

Im 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.

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

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.

As the new work fills my notebooks, Ive 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.

A name cant begin to encompass the sum of all her parts. But thats the magic of names, isnt 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.

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 doesnt stop me from doing what I can, but it makes the task hard. The successes are so small, the failures so large and many. Its like trying to stem a storm with ones bare hands.

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

Everybody has a soul. I turn to Pelly. And that means you, too. Im not so sure of that, he says. What does it feel like? Having a soul? I look at Maxine, but she only shrugs. I dont know, I tell Pelly. I dont 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 dont know about the others, but Im 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 hes got a soul right? But if thats not your soul, then what is? Its weird and not something you really think about, is it?

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 were alone.

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.

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.

Music’s the soundtrack of my life and has been since I was a teenager. There’s always music. If I’m not playing it, I’m listening to it. With my writing…sometimes it inspires a story, sometimes it highlights something I’m working on, sometimes it simply helps me stay in the narrative mood.

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

Everybodys got a true home—maybe not where theyre living, butwhere their heart lives.

Dont forget - no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.

The thing to remember when youre writing is, its not whether or not what you put on paper is true. Its whether it wakes a truth in your reader.

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.

Everything is the way it is because weve all agreed thats the way it is.

Theres no such thing as fiction, Annie told him once. If you can imagine something, then its happened.