Charles de Lint

I've always been interested in the outsider.

— Charles de Lint

I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile.

— Charles de Lint

We call them faerie. We don't believe in them. Our loss.

— Charles de Lint

You've got to find yourself first. Everything else'll follow.

— Charles de Lint

One cannot seek to uphold honor in a being that has none.

— Charles de Lint

It was all cheese and applause.

— Charles de Lint

I don't think the world works on merit.

— Charles de Lint

Under the skin, intense fires burn.

— 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…

— 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…

— Charles de Lint

It's all those stories and how they braid together that tells us who and what and where we are

— Charles de Lint

The real trouble comes from not knowing what we really want in the first place.

— Charles de Lint

We're all made of stories. When they finally put us underground, the stories are what will go on.

— Charles de Lint

The past scampers like an alley cat through the present, leaving the paw prints of memories scattered helter-skelter.

— Charles de Lint

You walk around with a negative attitude and you're just naturally going to bring trouble and hard times down on yourself.

— Charles de Lint

The trouble with advice is that it's usually something you don't want to hear.

— Charles de Lint

“Every book tells a different story to the person who reads it. How they perceive that book will depend on who they…

— Charles de Lint

“The trouble with magic is that it never really lets go. If you work one magic to undo another, you might end…

— Charles de Lint

I'm not...' Angharad began, but then she thought. Not what? Not a bad person? Perhaps. But had she never known anger? Never…

— 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…

— Charles de Lint

... we chase after ghosts and spirits and are left holding only memories and dreams. It's not that we want what we…

— Charles de Lint

Books and music saved me as a teenager because it was through them that I realized that I wasn't alone in my…

— Charles de Lint

Compromise is necessary ... so long as you never give up who you are. That isn't compromise; that's spiritual death. You have…

— 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…

— Charles de Lint

The faerie represent the beauty we don't see, or even choose to ignore. That's why I'll paint them in junkyards, or fluttering…

— Charles de Lint

But what the evil people do, that's their responsibility. The burden they have to carry. Sure, when we see 'em starting on…

— Charles de Lint

“I read and write for character. If I like and can relate to the characters in a story I can enjoy any…

— 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…

— Charles de Lint

“I watched the people passing below, each of them a story, each story part of somebody else's, all of it connected to…

— Charles de Lint

I want to be magic. I want to touch the heart of the world and make it smile. I want to be…

— Charles de Lint

Can you remember how you felt when you were communicating through your artwork? Not just the sense of completion, but the sense…

— Charles de Lint

“He had too much cat in his blood - a deep-rooted feline twitch that would travel the length of his nerves to…

— Charles de Lint

“People who’ve never read fairy tales, the professor said, have a harder time coping in life than the people who have. They…

— Charles de Lint

People want to know those details. They think it gives them greater insight into a piece of art, but when they approach…

— Charles de Lint

“People didn't realize it, but they needed myths to survive, just as much now as when their forebears were alive. Perhaps more.…

— Charles de Lint

“I do know that the gardens of the first lands are still lying there, right under the skin of the world- pulsing…

— Charles de Lint

“The lonesome dark. That's what Jack called a night like this. When you were distanced from everything and everybody. Out on your…

— Charles de Lint

There were two forests for every one you entered. There was the one you walked in, the physical echo, and then there…

— Charles de Lint

I've always been aware of the otherworld, of spirits that exist in that twilight place that lies in the corner of our…

— Charles de Lint

I envy the music lovers hear. I see them walking hand in hand, standing close to each other in a queue at…

— Charles de Lint