Canadian writer (1951- )
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
I don't actually talk about my books much, because I find if I talk about them I don't want to write them anymore. I write to find out what happens. You know how you read a book? That's what I'm doing except I'm just doing it a lot slower because it takes a lot longer to do.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Music and Myth: A Conversation with Charles de Lint", The Internet Review of Science Fiction
As the new work fills my notebooks, I've 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.
CHARLES DE LINT
Dreams Underfoot
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
My characters seem real because they are drawn from the realities of my life. I didn't have to research their pain; I just tapped into my own.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Journal Entries", Memory and Dream
I believe in a different kind of magic. The kind we make between each other.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
There are few joys to compare with the telling of a well-told tale.
CHARLES DE LINT
Yarrow: An Autumn Tale
Wisdom never comes to those who believe they have nothing left to learn.
CHARLES DE LINT
"The Forest is Crying", The Ivory and the Horn
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
I write on a computer, but I've run the complete gambit. When I was very young, I wrote with a ballpoint pen in school notebooks. Then I got pretentious and started writing with a dip pen on parchment (I wrote at least a novel-length poem that way). Moved on to a fountain pen. Then a typewriter, then an electric self-correct. Then someone gave me a word processor and I was amazed at being able to fit ten pages on one of those floppy discs.
CHARLES DE LINT
interview with Kim Antieau, April 28, 2008
Life's like art. You have to work hard to keep it simple and still have meaning.
CHARLES DE LINT
"The Pochade Box", The Ivory and the Horn
Like legend and myth, magic fades when it is unused.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Little Country
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.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Paperjack", Dreams Underfoot: The Newford Collection
The stronger a woman gets, the more insecure the men in her life feel. It doesn't work that way for a woman. We celebrate strength--in our partners as well as in ourselves.
CHARLES DE LINT
Memory and Dream
A name can't begin to encompass the sum of all her parts. But that's the magic of names, isn't 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.
CHARLES DE LINT
Dreams Underfoot
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
Into the Green
The trouble with advice is that it's usually something you don't want to hear.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed. What would be left to strive for if everything were known?
CHARLES DE LINT
"Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night", The Ivory and the Horn
The road leading to a goal does not separate you from the destination; it is essentially a part of it.
CHARLES DE LINT
"Romano Drom", Dreams Underfoot: The Newford Collection
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.
CHARLES DE LINT
Greenmantle