Canadian writer (1951- )
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
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The Onion Girl
People who've never read fairy tales ... have a harder time coping in life than the people who have. They don't have access to all the lessons that can be learned from the journeys through the dark woods and the kindness of strangers treated decently, the knowledge that can be gained from the company and example of Donkeyskins and cats wearing boots and steadfast tin soldiers. I'm not talking about in-your-face lessons, but more subtle ones. The kind that seep up from your subconscious and give you moral and humane structures for your life. That teach you how to prevail, and trust. And maybe even to love.
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
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
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
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
By enlarging your knowledge of things, you will find your knowledge of self is enlarged.
CHARLES DE LINT
"The Pochade Box", The Ivory and the Horn
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
Moonlight & Vines
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
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
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 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
There's more to life than just surviving ... but ... sometimes just surviving is all you get.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
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
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
There's never an easy route to the things that matter.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
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
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
The Little Country