Quotes from Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is like the greatest, most fantastic library you could ever imagine. It's a labyrinth of books with tunnels, bridges, arches, secret sections - and it's hidden inside an old palace in the old city of Barcelona.

A man must have vices, expensive ones if possible. Otherwise when he reaches old age he will have nothing to be redeemed from.

Wine turns the wise man into a fool and the fool into a wise man.

It's up to you how you waste your time and money. I'm staying here to read: life's too short.

Her tiny and organized handwriting reminded me of the tidiness of her desk, as if she'd wanted to find in words the peace and safety that life hadn't wanted to grant her.

Poetry is written with tears, fiction with blood, and history with invisible ink.

We had yet to learn that the Devil created youth so that we could make our mistakes, and that God established maturity and old age so that we could pay for them.

How many lost souls do You need, Lord, to satisfy Your hunger? the hatter asked. God, in His infinite silence, looked at him without blinking.

Barcelona is a very old city in which you can feel the weight of history; it is haunted by history. You cannot walk around it without perceiving it.

Some disappointments honor those who inspire them

1I smiled bitterly, a defeated man pitifully begging a God in whom he had never trusted.

Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music.

Deep down we've never been who we think we once were, and we only remember what never happened.

In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom.

She was seventeen, her entire life shining on her lips.

The success of 'The Shadow of the Wind' made me very happy, but it did not change my perspective or the way I was.

God gives us life, but the world's landlord is the devil.

While you're working, you don't have to look life in the eye.

That book taught me that by reading, I could live more intensely. It could give me back the sight I had lost. For that reason alone, a book that didn't matter to anyone changed my life.

Everything in life in nonsense. it's just a question of persepctive

There are two things that I cannot live without: music and books. Caffeine isn't dignified enough to qualify.

Time has taught me not to lose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either.

Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.

With 'The Angel's Game', there was a lot of pressure from the expectations - expectations from the book industry and from readers; it's natural.