Charles de Lint
Often the magical elements in my books are standing in for elements of the real world, the small and magical-in-their-own-right sorts of things that we take for granted and no longer pay attention to, like the bonds of friendship that entwine our own lives with those of other people and places.Collection: Friendship
The best artists know what to leave out.Collection: Art
The beginning of a friendship, the fact that two people out of the thousands around them can meet and connect and become friends, seems like a kind of magic to me. But maintaining a friendship requires work. I don't mean that as a bad thing. Good art requires work as well.Collection: Friendship
I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile.Collection: Smile
When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it.
If you're not ready to die, then how can you live?
Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors.
The thing with pretending you're in a good mood is that sometimes you can.
The road leading to a goal does not separate you from the destination; it is essentially a part of it.
Life is like art. You have to work hard to keep it simple and still have meaning.
Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?
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.
Not everything has to mean something. Some things just are.
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.
The problem with children is that you have to put up with their parents.
There are few joys to compare with the telling of a well-told tale.
One expected growth, change; without it, the world was less, the well of inspiration dried up, the muses fled.
As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between fact and what most people call fiction is about fifteen pages in the dictionary.
I'm not Chinese. I thrive in interesting times.
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.
Stone walls confine a tinker; cold iron binds a witch; but a musician's music can never be fettered, for it lives first in her heart and mind.
Why did men worship in churches, locking themselves away in the dark, when the world lay beyond its doors in all its real glory?
Witchery is merely a word for what we are all capable of.
I think you're all mad. But that's part and parcel of being an artistic genius, isn't it?
The few wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them.
When one of my characters becomes aware of a magical element, it might be because the world is wider than we assume it to be, but it might also be a reminder to pay attention to what is here already, hidden only because it's been forgotten.
I've always been interested in the outsider.
I've always known and been interested in people who are a little bit off the norm. I like to call attention to the idea that they are there, that they are real people, not invisible.
It's all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Art
You've got to find yourself first. Everything else'll follow.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Inspirational
I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be a friend of elves and live in a tree. Or under a hill. I want to marry a moonbeam and hear the stars sing. I don't want to pretend at magic anymore. I want to be magic.Collection: Stars
Our lives are stories, and the stories we have to give to each other are the most important. No one has a story too small and all are of equal stature. We each tell them in different ways, through different mediums—and if we care about each other, we'll take the time to listen.Collection: Giving
Inside us lies every possibility that is available to a sentient being. Every darkness, every light. It is the choices we make that decide who or what we will be.Collection: Lying
There are people who take the heart out of you, and there are people who put it back.Collection: Friendship
The real problem is, people think life is a ladder, and it's really a wheel.Collection: Life
Look inside yourself for the answers - you're the only one who knows what's best for you. Everybody else is only guessing.Collection: Looks
The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses.Collection: Life
But what the evil people do, that's their responsibility. The burden they have to carry. Sure, when we see 'em starting on causing some hurt, we've got to try and stop 'em, but mostly what the rest of us should be concerning ourselves with is doing right by others. Every time you do a good turn, you shine the light a little further into the dark. And the thing is, even when we're gone, that light's going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back.Collection: Hurt
When you're invisible, no one can see that you're different.Collection: Different
We're so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, incessantly editing who we are until we fit in.Collection: Jobs
It is so easy for your people to forget that everything has a spirit, that all are equal. That magic and mystery are a part of your lives, not something to store away in a child's bedroom, or to use as an escape from your lives.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Inspiration
If you don't believe that the world has a heart, then you won't hear it beating, you won't think it's alive and you won't consider what you're doing to it.Collection: Believe
I've always been aware of the otherworld, of spirits that exist in that twilight place that lies in the corner of our eyes, of fairie and stranger things still that we spy only when we're not really paying attention to them, whispers and flickering shadows, here one moment, gone the instant we turn our heads for a closer look. But I couldn't always find them. And when I did, for a long time I thought they were only this excess of imagination that I carry around inside me, that somehow it was leaking out of me into the world.Collection: Lying
You can't stand up to the night until you understand what's hiding in its shadows.Collection: Night
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.Collection: Art
When you're touched by magic, nothing's ever quite the same again. What really makes me sad is all those people who never have the chance to know that touch. They're too busy, or they just don't hold with make-believe, so they shut the door without really knowing it was there to be opened in the first place.Collection: Believe
Under the skin, intense fires burn.Collection: Fire