Quotes from Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I'm interested in everything. I don't see why Borges can't work along with Neil Gaiman, or Stephen King can't be mixed with Balzac. It's just storytelling; it's different ways of using codes and images and words and sounds.

But in good time you'll see that sometimes what matters isn't what one gives but what one gives up.

Once you lost all hope, time began to go faster and the senseless days deadened your soul.

I'm fascinated by the period that goes from the Industrial Revolution to right after World War II. There's something about that period that's epic and tragic.

It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.

I've always thought that we are what we remember, and the less we remember, the less we are.

When 'The Shadow of the Wind' became a success I had already been a working writer, I'd been through the ups and downs, I'd seen how it worked.

You know who your true friends are when things go wrong for you, but the opposite is also true. When things go well, the people who really love you are happy.

Sometimes, in difficult circumstances, one can confuse compassion with love.

The nurse knew that those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words.

You end up becoming someone you see in the eyes of those you love.

I'm a voracious reader, and I like to explore all sorts of writing without prejudice and without paying any attention to labels, conventions or silly critical fads.

Shirley Jackson's writings are a must for aficionados of the gothic and of good literature.

I realised that I had always been writing things that other people wanted me to write and not what I really wanted to write, so I felt like I was losing my way.

A modern-day Dickens with a popular voice and a genius for storytelling in any genre, Stephen King has written many wonderful books.

I spend a lot of time in L.A., and when it rains there you get the entire rainfall for the year in two days, raindrops the size of mangoes. And in Barcelona, the Mediterranean storms come up from the sea, thunder and lightning; it's like the end of the world.

A good liar knows that the most efficient lie is always a truth that has had a key piece removed from it.

that as long as we are being remembered, we remain alive.

Everything can be forgiven in this world, save telling the truth.

The truth is what hurts

Time curses all, I thought, except the truth.

I am a curious creature and put my finger in as many cakes as I can: history, film, technology, etc. I'm also a freak for urban history, particularly Barcelona, Paris and New York. I know more weird stuff about 19th-century Manhattan than is probably healthy.

I've always ignored the labels people put on things.

Mention the gothic, and many readers will probably picture gloomy castles and an assortment of sinister Victoriana. However, the truth is that the gothic genre has continued to flourish and evolve since the days of Bram Stoker, producing some of its most interesting and accomplished examples in the 20th century - in literature, film and beyond.