Charles de Lint Quotes

I'm a strange person. Sometimes I hardly know what I'm going to do or say next. Sometimes I seem a stranger to myself. Sometimes what I do surprises me and I can't understand why I do it.

So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them.

Life is an aggregate of experience, which continually surprises us.

Do not know yourself. I want to continue to surprise me.

Everyone is complicated one way or another. But it's interesting to dig into a complicated character, to try to find that within yourself.

I often do things that surprise me, not to mention others.

We need to live our truth. We need to discover ourselves. And no matter how much you prepare for everything, life will always find a way to surprise you.

I do know my own mind,' protested Anne. 'The trouble is, my mind changes and then I have to get acquainted with it all over again.

The mystery isn't in the technique, it's in each of us.

I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about.

But possibly I am something more than I suppose myself to be.

How can a man know himself? He is a thing dark and veiled; and if the hare has seven skins, man can slough off seventy times seven and still not be able to say: "this is really you, this is no longer outer shell.

What am I then, my God? What is my nature? A life varied, multifaceted and truly immense.

But perhaps this is all to the good. Perhaps it’s best to live with the possibility that around any corner, at any time, may come the person who reminds you of your own capacity to surprise yourself, to put at risk everything that’s dear to you. Who reminds you of the distances we have to bridge to begin to know anything about one another. Who reminds you that what seems to be—even about yourself—may not be. That like him, you need to be forgiven.

Who I am really keeps surprising me.

I've always just been really interesting in humans, whether I knew it or not, back then. To be able to recreate that and express that was definitely something I wanted to do.

It is the true nature of mankind to learn from mistakes, not from example.

Man is a wonder to himself; he can neither govern nor know himself.

I am the most curious of all to see what will be the next thing that I will do.

To find the point where hypothesis and fact meet; the delicate equilibrium between dream and reality; the place where fantasy and earthly things are metamorphosed into a work of art; the hour when faith in the future becomes knowledge of the past; to lay down one's power for others in need; to shake off the old ordeal and get ready for the new; to question, knowing that never can the full answer be found; to accept uncertainties quietly, even our incomplete knowledge of God; this is what man's journey is about, I think.

Sometimes the lights all shining on me, other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it's been.

In order to know what he is, a man must first know what the sum of this mysterious humanity is, a humanity made up of people who, like himself, do not understand what they are.

Please... tell me who you are and what you want. And if you think those are simple questions, keep in mind that most people live their entire lives without arriving at an answer.

I am still so naïve; I know pretty much what I like and dislike; but please, don’t ask me who I am. A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?