Charles de Lint Quotes

89 Sourced Quotes

Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors. And this I will tell you as well: One cannot seek to uphold honor in a being that has none.

Charles de Lint
There are few joys to compare with the telling of a well-told tale.

Charles de Lint
It's the questions we ask, the journey we take to get to where we are going that is more important than the actual answer. 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.

Charles de Lint
Witchery is merely a word for what we are all capable of — heightened nightsight, an empathy shared with the beasts, a utilization of the more obscure abilities of our minds. Nothing that science can't explain away. Wizardry is spells and enchantments. Fairy tales.

Charles de Lint
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.

Charles de Lint
Magic's never what you expect it to be, but it's often what you need.

Charles de Lint
If you're not ready to die, then how can you live?

Charles de Lint
Our time's the most precious thing we've got to offer folks, and the worst thing a body can do is to take it away from us.

Charles de Lint
The real problem is, people think life is a ladder, and it's really a wheel.

Charles de Lint
I can't imagine it now, but I must've been innocent at some time in my life. A baby don't just get itself born bad, do it?

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

Charles de Lint
The best artists know what to leave out. They know how much of the support should show through as the pigment is applied, what details aren't necessary.

Charles de Lint
Legend and myth are what we use to describe what we don't comprehend. They are out attempts to make the impossible, possible — at least insofar as our spirits interact with the spirit of the world, or if that is too animistic for you, then let's use Jung's terminology and call it our racial subconscious. No matter the semantics, they are of a kind and it is legend and myth that binds us all together. … Through them, through their retellings, and through those version that are called religion while they are current, we are taught Truth and we attempt to understand Mystery.

Charles de Lint
Why did men worship in churches, locking themselves away in the dark, when the world lay beyond its doors in all its real glory?

Charles de Lint
What I've got to talk about, I don't think a priest wants to hear. What does a priest know or care about secular concerns? All they want to talk about is God. All they want to hear is a tidy list of sins so that they can prescribe their penances and get on to the next customer.

Charles de Lint
You're not a nun, are you? You haven't taken one of those absurd vows that cut you off from what otherwise might be a full and healthy human existence?

Charles de Lint
Magic lies in between things, between the day and the night, between yellow and blue, between any two things.

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

Charles de Lint
I've always had these bouts of depression; I hide them well but doesn't mean they aren't there. … I didn't have anyone around for whom I had to put on a cheerful mask. The thing with pretending you're in a good mood is that sometimes you can actually trick yourself into feeling better.

Charles de Lint
It's easy to believe in magic when you're young. Anything you couldn't explain was magic then. It didn't matter if it was science or a fairy tale. Electricity and elves were both infinitely mysterious and equally possible - elves probably more so.

Charles de Lint
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.

Charles de Lint
Beauty isn't what you see on TV or in magazine ads or even necessarily in art galleries. It's a lot deeper and a lot simpler than that. It's realizing the goodness of things, it's leaving the world a little better than it was before you got here. It's appreciating the inspiration of the world around you and trying to inspire others.

Charles de Lint
Most children are given far too much praise for their early drawings, so much so that they rarely learn the ability to refine their first crude efforts the way their early attempts at language are corrected.

Charles de Lint
Only fools think they're wise; the rest of us just muddle through as we can.

Charles de Lint
Everybody makes the same mistake. Fortune-telling doesn't reveal the future; it mirrors the present. It resonates against what your subconscious already knows and hauls it up out of the darkness so you can get a good look at it.

Charles de Lint