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121 " There’s stories and then there’s stories,” he said, interrupting her. “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. "
― Charles de Lint , The Very Best of Charles de Lint
122 " There is no event so momentous that it hasn’t been seen before, no trouble so grand that won’t look small from another perspective. "
― Charles de Lint , Trader (Newford, #4)
123 " the lies in fiction are such an effective way to tell emotional truths. "
124 " You lose your pride and you lose everything. We don’t want to know the stories, because we don’t want to remember. But we’ve got to take the good with the bad and make ourselves whole again, be proud again. A proud people can never be defeated. They lose battles, but they’ll never lose the war, because for them to lose the war you’ve got to go out and kill each and every one of them, everybody with even a drop of the blood. And even then, the stories will go on. "
125 " When all’s said and done,” Mally said, “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
126 " It’s a mistake to go poking about in your own past,” she’d told her. “It makes you shrink into yourself. Every time you return you get smaller and more transparent. Go back often enough and you might vanish altogether. We’re meant to put the past behind us and be the people we are now, Izzy, not who we were. "
― Charles de Lint , Memory and Dream (Newford, #2)
127 " There was dusting and sweeping to do, books to be put away. Lovely books. It didn't matter to Dick if they were serious leather-bound tomes or paperbacks with garish covers. He loved them all, for they were filled with words, and words were magic to this hob. Wise and clever humans had used some marvelous spell to imbue each book with every kind of story and character you could imagine, and many you couldn't. If you knew the key to unlock the words, you could experience them all - Pixel Pixies "
128 " I swear that all dogs are born knowing certain words. Walk. Eat. Good dog. The important stuff. "
129 " There’s stories and then there’s stories,” he said, interrupting her. “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. "
130 " Maybe she couldn’t go. Maybe she wanted him to stay. But she knew enough not to try to hold him back if he had to go. It was no different than making friends with a wild creature. You could catch them and tie them up and make them stay with you, but their heart would never be yours. Their wild heart, the thing you loved about them…it would wither and die. So why would you want to do such a thing? "
― Charles de Lint , Somewhere in My Mind There Is a Painting Box
131 " I can’t think of a better rationale to create a work of art. I don’t care what form one’s art takes, it has to be an attempt to leave the world a better place than it was before we got here or it’s not doing its job. And I don’t mean just making things that are pretty. "
― Charles de Lint , Spells and Spirits: An Urban Fantasy Collection
132 " In one form or another, it was one of the first implements created by ancient people to give voice to the mysteries that words cannot encompass, but that they had a need to express. Only the drum was older. "
― Charles de Lint , Ghosts of Wind & Shadow (Newford Book 1)
133 " 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. "
134 " There are no happy endings,” Cerin told her. “There are no real endings ever—happy or otherwise. We all have our own stories, which are just a part of the one Story that binds both this world and Faerie. Sometimes we step into each others’ stories—perhaps just for a few minutes, perhaps for years—and then we step out of them again. But all the while, the Story just goes on. "
135 " He’s this Goth dude, can control people.” “Goth, like a Visigoth German Viking of the middle ages, or a Neil Gaiman-looking, Robert Smith, make-up-and-moonbeams Cure fan?” “What’s a Neil Gaiman?” “You’re an idiot. "
136 " Bi kashtesko merel i yag, his Uncle Nonka would have said. Without wood the fire would die. Dwelling on sorrow and prikaza merely made them grow. "
― Charles de Lint , Mulengro
137 " in subsequent work where I explored the dark, I used the pseudonym Samuel M. Key. "
138 " With every light another color. —Romany description of themselves "
139 " I’ve always wondered about the other religions. The Christian god is supposed to have created the world in seven days.” “Their world—not ours. "
― Charles de Lint , The Wind in His Heart
140 " You’d be okay with somebody eating you?” She shrugs. “If I’m stupid enough to get caught, sure. Everybody’s got to eat.” “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that idea.” “Nobody goes looking for it. 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. "