You wouldn't want any creative process to lose its sense of fun and adventure, but that doesn't mean you can't take it seriously as well. Charles de Lint More Quotes by Charles de Lint More Quotes From Charles de Lint Fortune-telling doesn't reveal the future; it mirrors the present. It resonates against what your subconscious already knows and hauls it up out of the darkness so you can get a good look at it. Charles de Lint mirrorsdarknesslooks All my life I've wanted to be the kid who gets to cross over into the magical kingdom. Charles de Lint crosseskingdomskids Like legend and myth, magic fades when it is unused. Charles de Lint mythlegendsmagic It seems like I always wrote, I just didn't think of it as a career choice. I just liked to tell stories ... to myself, to pen pals (I had a lot of them, all over the world). Of course this was in the days before computers were everywhere, and anyone could access the Web. You had to make an effort keeping up a correspondence, and the arrival of the mail once a day was a big deal. I think if modern technology had been around when I was a kid, I would never have left my bedroom except to take the dogs out for their run three times a day. Charles de Lint dogrunningkids I never even considered writing a career option. I just liked the play of words. I was certainly interested in story, but the stories I was telling then were in narrative verse and prose poems, short and succinct, except for one novel-length poem written in narrative couplets. Charles de Lint careersplaywriting The real trouble comes from not knowing what we really want in the first place. Charles de Lint knowingrealwant There's stories and then there's stories. The ones with any worth change your life forever, perhaps only in a small way, but once you've heard them, they are forever a part of you. You nurture them and pass them on, and the giving only makes you feel better. The others are just words on a page. Charles de Lint feel-betterforevergiving Labels don't mean much to me one way or another -- except when they close the minds of potential readers. I'd much rather we do away with genres and simply file everything under fiction. I know it can work -- one of my favourite record stores (Waterloo Music in Austin) simply files everything alphabetically and no one seems to have much problem finding what they're looking for. Charles de Lint austinmindmean To me there's no difference between writing YA and adult except that in YA I make the book a little shorter and the protagonists are teens. The difference is in the readers. Charles de Lint differenceswritingbook Not everything has to mean something. Some things just are. Charles de Lint mean I was going through the motions of life, instead of really living, and there's no excuse for that. It's not something I'll let happen to me again. Charles de Lint really-livingno-excusesexcuse The old gods and their magics did not dwindle away into murky memories of brownies and little fairies more at home in a Disney cartoon; rather, they changed. The coming of Christ and Christians actually freed them. They were no longer bound to people's expectations but could now become anything that they could imagine themselves to be. They are still here, walking among us. We just don't recognize them anymore. Charles de Lint christianhomememories By enlarging your knowledge of things, you will find your knowledge of self is enlarged. Charles de Lint self-knowledgeself The only real reason for self-referencing is the fun factor. It's fun for the writer, getting little peeks at what old characters might be up to. And it's fun for readers to spot a familiar face, or pick up on a made-up book title or something from an earlier story. I don't know that it does -- or even should -- contribute to the story in hand being any better than it would have been without it. Charles de Lint realfunbook There isn't a single day I don't do some writing -- if you don't, you won't have a book. When you're self-employed it is very easy to burn away your time instead -- answering e-mails, surfing the Internet, or hanging out with friends. You really must have the discipline to sit down and write every day. Most of what I am writing is living in the back of my head or in my subconscious. I find if I write every day, my subconscious will do the job for me. Charles de Lint writingjobsbook What we take from the spirit world is only a reflection of what lies inside ourselves. Charles de Lint reflectionlyingworld The best artists know what to leave out. They know how much of the support should show through as the pigment is applied, what details aren't necessary. Charles de Lint detailssupportartist I was a misfit, but I think most teenagers feel that way. I don't care if you were a popular jock or the kid who spent his lunch hours in a stairwell reading a book, we all seem to have dealt with insecurities of one kind or another throughout our high school years. Charles de Lint teenagerreadingbook Well, while I didn't have the more extreme experiences of some of my characters, I didn't exactly come from the most normal of households. Or rather, it was normal, in that dysfunctional families appear to be the norm. Charles de Lint dysfunctional-familynormalcharacter 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 importantjourneyanswers
