Charles de Lint Quotes

Some things, I think, like fairy books and secret doors, are only meant to be found by children.

Children see magic because they look for it.

I love child things because there's so much mystery when you're a child.

The eyes of childhood are magnifying lenses.

There's a lot of magic in science, so to speak.

The magic of childhood is the strangeness of childhood — the uniqueness that makes us see things that other people don't see.

Mysteries simply are a feast for an active mind. And while in my lifetime I've seen science make extraordinary inroads into solving the most complex questions of life, after all this time I admit that I am thrilled that there are some things that forever will remain a mystery. For example, do I wear a toupee?

The FlowersAll the names I know from nurse:Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,And the Lady Hollyhock.Fairy places, fairy things,Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,Tiny trees for tiny dames-These must all be fairy names!Tiny woods below whose boughsShady fairies weave a house;Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,Where the braver fairies climb!Fair are grown-up people's trees,But the fairest woods are these;Where, if I were not so tall,I should live for good and all

Children are the closest we have to wisdom and they become adults the moment that final drop of everything mysterious is strained from them.

The inclination to believe in the fantastic may strike some as a failure in logic, or gullibility, but it’s really a gift. A world that might have Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster is clearly superior to one that definitely does not.

I don't want to write for adults. I want to write for readers who can perform miracles. Only children perform miracles when they read.

This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affectations glow and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.

I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful - an endless prospect of magic and wonder.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.

Science, you don't know, looks like magic.

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

When I think of mystery, I don't think about myself. I think of the universe, like why does the moon rise when the sun falls? Caterpillars turn into butterflies? I really haven't remained a recluse.

Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.

The artist brain is the sensory brain: sight and sound, smell and taste, touch. These are the elements of magic, and magic is the elemental stuff of art. In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do-spiritual sit-ups like reading a dull but recommended critical text. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.

The greatest lessons to be learned about life, love, purpose, meaning, and priority are to be learned from children.

I still don't understand why when you put a piece of paper in a tray with solution in it, it comes up. It's still, in a sense, magic to me. It's a funny thing, you know. I've got two kids, and when they were very young, they used to come in the darkroom and I thought they'd be astounded by that. Nothing. When they got a little older, then they got astounded by it.

There was romance in the unknown, but once a place had been discovered and cataloged and mapped, it was diminished, just another dusty fact in a book, sapped of mystery. So maybe it was better to leave a few spots on the map blank. To let the world keep a little of its magic, rather than forcing it to divulge every last secret. Maybe it was better, now and then, to wonder.

Oh, grown-ups cannot understand, And grown-ups never will, How short the way to fairyland Across the purple hill.