368 Quotes by Charles de Lint

Just stories. You and me, everybody, we’re a set of stories, and what those stories are is what makes us what we are.

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.

We got to stop asking for things, stop waiting for people to give us the things we think we need. All we really need is the stories. We have the stories and they’ll give us the one thing nobody else can, the thing we can only take for ourselves, because there’s nobody can give you back your pride. You’ve got to take it back yourself.

Everything, everybody wanted to lay claim to a piece of your soul. And if they couldn’t have it, they made you pay for it in guilt.

There’s bad apples in whatever way you want to group people – doesn’t matter if it’s religious, political or social. The big mistake is generalizing.

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.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but she was a bit like a cat herself, forever wandering in the woods, chasing after squirrels and rabbits as fast as her skinny legs could take her when the fancy struck, climbing trees like a possum, able to doze in the sun at a moment’s notice. And sometimes with no notice at all.

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.

But life isn’t ours to keep. We only get to hold it for a little bit and then we’ve got to pass it on.