|
d1676f3
|
Gina always believed there was magic in the world. "But it doesn't work in the way it does in fairy tales," she told me. "It doesn't save us. We have to save ourselves."
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
1d00a40
|
I'm not...' Angharad began, but then she thought. Not what? Not a bad person? Perhaps. But had she never known anger? Never held unkind thoughts? The stranger's observation was valid. No one was innocent of darkness.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
6531306
|
There are as many stories to be told as there are people to tell them about; only the mean-spirited would consider there to be a competition at all.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
b5a37ae
|
Everything has a spirit and it's all connected. If you think about that, if you live your life by it, then you're less likely to cause any hurt. It's like how our bodies go back into the ground when we die, so that connects us to the earth. If you dump trash, you're dumping it on your and my ancestors. Or to bring it down to its simplest level: treat everything and everybody the way you want to be treated, because when you hurt someone, you..
|
|
spirit
life
|
Charles de Lint |
|
c1abdd8
|
Lies were like having a pregnant rabbit. One day you had one, but before you knew it, there were rabbits all over the place.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
1b254e2
|
There is no plan, no future laid out for any of us beyond what we make for ourselves.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
16f855c
|
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.
|
|
dark
light
sentient-beings
possibility
|
Charles de Lint |
|
dac15c0
|
It's my diary", she'd explained. "Every mark I've had drawn on my skin connects me to where and who I've been- so I never forget who I am and how I got here."There was humour in the smile she offered him. "And you know what the real beauty of it is?" Hank had shaken his head. "Nobody can take it away."
|
|
identity
tattoos
|
Charles de Lint |
|
7eb674a
|
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.
|
|
beauty
inspirational
|
Charles de Lint |
|
dd5f11a
|
It reminded me of that tongue-in-cheek quick history of art I'd overheard...Used to be people couldn't draw very well, then they could, and now they can't again.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
908bf4c
|
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 around a sleeping wino. No place or person is immune to spirit. Look hard enough, and everything has a story. Everybody is important."- Jilly Coppercorn"
|
|
spirit
inspirational
|
Charles de Lint |
|
977a62b
|
All forests are one... They are all echoes of the first forest that gave birth to Mystery when the world began.
|
|
world
trees
mystery
|
Charles de Lint |
|
bd43bea
|
Have you ever noticed' I said 'how everyone says they want to be different, but as soon as they meet someone who really is different, they ostracize them?
|
|
the-blue-girl
|
Charles De Lint |
|
6c8081f
|
We are wise women," Abuela liked to say. "Not because we are wise, but because we seek wisdom."
|
|
wisdom
|
Charles de Lint |
|
2138041
|
What do they say about meeting a bear in the woods? Oh right, you shouldn't. And to make sure you don't, you should make a lot of noise so that they'll will know where you are and keep their distance because, supposedly, they're as nervous of us as we are of them. Which is all goo, except this bear doesn't seem the least bit nervous. He's giving me a look like I'm Goldilocks, ate his porridge, broke his chair, slept in his bed, and now it's..
|
|
humorous
fairytales
|
Charles de Lint |
|
53e24e4
|
I watched the people passing below, each of them a story, each story part of somebody else's, all of it connected to the big story of the world. People weren't islands, so far as I was concerned. How could they be, when their stories kept getting tangled up in everybody else's?
|
|
world
people
stories
|
Charles de Lint |
|
b63cd23
|
I suppose the other thing too many forget is that we were all stories once, each and every one of us. And we remain stories. But too often we allow those stories to grow banal, or cruel or unconnected to each other.We allow the stories to continue, but they no longer have a heart. They no longer sustain us.
|
|
stories
|
Charles de Lint |
|
f3c0cc0
|
Most times we only see things for the way we are. But we're good at lying to ourselves. Sometimes we need somebody who's not living in our skin to point out how things really are.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
688436b
|
It's not all about getting your own way. Sometimes there's a bigger picture.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
b9bb51d
|
She hoped he was running to his red deer woman, and that when he tapped on the door of her heart, she'd open it wide and let him in.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
3ebf2b9
|
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 |
|
5ec2e21
|
Everything is the way it is because we've all agreed that's the way it is.
|
|
reality
|
Charles de Lint |
|
5c20516
|
Sara Kendell once read somewhere that the tale of the world is like a tree. The tale, she understood, did not so much mean the niggling occurrences of daily life. Rather it encompassed the grand stories that caused some change in the world and were remembered in ensuing years as, if not histories, at least folktales and myths. By such reasoning, Winston Churchill could take his place in British folklore alongside the legendary Robin Hood; M..
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
e7280e8
|
I realize that for all my penchant in believing that there's more to the world than what we can see, that folk tales and fairy tales are based on real, if forgotten events, I never accepted that part of it as being real.
|
|
folk-tales
|
Charles de Lint |
|
6901220
|
Life's an act of magic, too. Claire Hamill sings a line in one of her songs that really sums it up for me: 'If there's no magic, there's no meaning.' Without magic- or call it wonder, mystery, natural wisdom- nothing has any depth. It's all just surface. You know: what you see is what you get. I honestly believe there's more to everything than that, whether it's a Monet hanging in a gallery or some old vagrant sleeping in an alley.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
ef7b6db
|
If you cherish something enough", she told me, "it doesn't matter how old or worn or useless it's become; your caring for it immediately raises its value in somebody else's eyes. It's just like rehab- a body's got to believe in their own worth before anybody can start fixing them, but most people need someone to believe in them before they can start believing in themselves." --
|
|
worth
|
Charles de Lint |
|
53753bb
|
Having to amuse myself during those earlier years, I read voraciously and widely. Mythic matter and folklore made up much of that reading--retellings of the old stories ( ), anecdotal collections and historical investigations of the stories' backgrounds--and then I stumbled upon the books which took me back to and the like. I was in heaven when began the Unicorn imprint for Ballantine and scoured the other publishers for similar good ..
|
|
reading
books
fantasy
book-genres
recommendations
sf
science-fiction
sci-fi
influences
|
Charles de Lint |
|
fe4c3a2
|
The puppet thinks: It's not so much
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
0aff41d
|
Sometimes we wonder what it's like to feel normal," Maida said. "You know, like all the people you see out on the streets or sitting in their little boxy homes." ... "But then", Maida went on, "we see how boring they are and we're happy to be the way we are."
|
|
normal
|
Charles de Lint |
|
d18b3d3
|
You've got to spread out as far as you can, cut down a whole forest, irrigate a whole desert, just to make sure that you won't accidentally stumble upon a place that's still in its natural state.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
a969bd3
|
Ghosts were just a way that some stupid people dealt with their dull lives.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
f83aef9
|
One of my favourite things to do when I write is to bring a sense of wonder to a normal everyday setting... Yes, there are magical elements, but there are also very down-to-earth elements and often what shines through isn't the magic, but the lanterns that the characters light against the dark... If you substitute the words "fairy tale" or "myth" for "fantasy," the reason I use these elements in my own work is that they create resonances th..
|
|
fairy-tales
myth
magic
writing
fantasy
|
Charles de Lint |
|
8d47f66
|
Growing up, I'd already decided I wanted to be a beatnik. A Bohemian poet, I thought. Or a musician. Maybe an artist. I'd dress in black turtlenecks and smoke Gitanes. I'd listen to cool jazz in clubs, getting up to read devastating truths from my notebook, leaning against the microphone, cigarette dangling from my hand.
|
|
turtlenecks
growing-up
beatnik
poet
|
Charles de Lint |
|
c6586bd
|
She wanted to tell him what happened wasn't really his fault, but she knew that wasn't the way this kind of guilt worked. Intellectually, he already knew that. It was his emotions that were tripping him up. The tangle of love and memory and what might have been.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
322c09c
|
Every book tells a different story to the person who reads it. How they perceive that book will depend on they are. A good book reflects the reader, as much as it illuminates the author's text.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
82d7154
|
He had too much cat in his blood - a deep-rooted feline twitch that would travel the length of his nerves to tickle his mind at the faintest sign of a mystery, no matter how small. He could no more let a riddle go unsolved than he could pass by the perfect length of colourful wire without picking it up.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
35a72f4
|
Faerie music is the wind", he says, "and their movement is the play of shadow cast by moonlight, or starlight, or no light at all. Faerie lives like a ghost beside us, but only the city remembers. But then the city never forgets anything."
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
2fd844b
|
Sculptors, poets, painters, musicians--they're the traditional purveyors of Beauty. But it can as easily be created by a gardener, a farmer, a plumber, a careworker. It's the intent you put into your work, the pride you take in it--whatever it is.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
0d11a8a
|
Years ago, when I was about to go on a book tour for
|
|
writing
fantasy
interview
mythic-fiction
|
Charles de Lint |
|
37d06a1
|
But if I could just get som ehint, some sign..." Conchita smiles, without humor, but with great affection. "That's the point behind faith," she says. "It's not something you can prove....I know you hate to hear this, but you either have it, or you don't."
|
|
trust
|
Charles de Lint |
|
6c0aed5
|
There's nothing wrong with a youthful prospective. Don't forget- no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories you have to tell.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
b5bcb4d
|
If everybody really and truly treated each other the way they'd want to be treated, all the problems of the world would be solved. Nobody would starve, because nobody'd want to go hungry themselves. Nobody would steal, or kill, or hurt each other, because they wouldn't want that to happen to themselves.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |
|
9cf0247
|
The more she tried to recapture the impulse that had set her wanting to put pen to paper, the less it seemed to have ever existed in the first place.
|
|
writing
|
Charles de Lint |
|
129064a
|
If all the darkness each of us carries within us, all our angers and unhappiness and bad moments were pulled out of us and given shape, we would all create monsters.
|
|
|
Charles de Lint |