Quote

We end up stumbling our way through the forest, never seeing all the unexpected and wonderful possibilities and potentials because we're looking for the idea of a tree, instead of appreciating the actual trees in front of us.

Charles de Lint

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Charles de Lint
Age: 72
Born: 1951
Born: December 22
Musician
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Samuel M. Key
Wonderful
Trees
Potentials
Looking
Fronts
Appreciating
Idea
Appreciate
Stumbling
Ends
Front
Forest
Ideas
Possibility
Possibilities
Way
Instead
Unexpected
Never
Tree
Forests
Life
Seeing
Actual

More quotes by Charles de Lint

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Books and music saved me as a teenager because it was through them that I realized that I wasn't alone in my obsessive love for words and music.
Charles de Lint
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When you're touched by magic, nothing's ever quite the same again. What really makes me sad is all those people who never have the chance to know that touch. They're too busy, or they just don't hold with make-believe, so they shut the door without really knowing it was there to be opened in the first place.
Charles de Lint
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I'm not Chinese. I thrive in interesting times.
Charles de Lint
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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 things that we take for granted and no longer pay attention to, like the bonds of friendship that entwine our own lives with those of other people and places.
Charles de Lint
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Every time you do a good deed you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, when you're gone that light is going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back.
Charles de Lint
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The thing with pretending you're in a good mood is that sometimes you can actually trick yourself into feeling better.
Charles de Lint
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You know how we'd get along better? If everybody'd just remember how we're all related. White, black, Asian, skin. No difference. All the bloodlines go back to that one old mama in Africa.
Charles de Lint
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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
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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
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The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses.
Charles de Lint
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One cannot seek to uphold honor in a being that has none.
Charles de Lint
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Don't start brooding about that, too, she says. Everybody's got a piece of stranger inside them. It's what lets us surprise ourselves and keeps things interesting. -Lupita
Charles de Lint
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There are few joys to compare with the telling of a well-told tale.
Charles de Lint
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... he had understood, better than anyone ... the beauty that grew out of the simple knowledge that everything, no matter how small or large it might be, was a perfect example of what it was.
Charles de Lint
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Life is like art. You have to work hard to keep it simple and still have meaning.
Charles de Lint
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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
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Witchery is merely a word for what we are all capable of.
Charles de Lint
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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.
Charles de Lint
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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
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The best artists know what to leave out.
Charles de Lint