Quotes from Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Those who aren't able to fall in love suffer all the more.

The most sincere pain is experienced alone.

You're one of those people who fall off a tree and never quite reach the ground.

Why is it that the less one has to say the more one says it, and in the most pompous and pedantic way possible? Is it to fool the world or just to fool themselves?

Good words are a vain benevolence that demand no sacrifice and are more appreciated than real acts of kindness.

You'll become who you believe you are.

There is nothing in the path of life that we don't already know before we start. Nothing important is learned; it is simply remembered.

I felt myself surrounded by millions of abandoned pages, by words and souls without an owner sinking in an ocean of darkness, while the world that throbbed outside the Library seemed to be losing it´s memory, day after day, unknowingly, feeling all the wiser the more it forgot.

And never forget that we exist so long as someone remembers us

To write is to rewrite, he kept reminding me. One writes for oneself, and one rewrites for others.

El mar lo devuelve todo después de un tiempo, especialmente los recuerdos.

A young man is the perfect soldier. He has great potential for aggression and a limited critical capacity—or none at all—with which to analyze it and judge how to channel it. Throughout history societies have found ways of using this store of aggression, turning their adolescents into soldiers, cannon fodder with which to conquer their neighbors or defend themselves against their aggressors.

Let's shake hands and be friends, but please, I beg you, stop farting like that, because I'm beginning to hallucinate and in my dreams I see Comrade Joseph Stalin doing the Charleston.

There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds.

I caressed Cristina in the dark, listening to the storm outside as it left the city, knowing that I was going to lose her but also knowing that, for a few minutes, we had belonged to each other and to nobody else.

Ignatius B. Samson, welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.

The bookseller handed me the book and winked. Have a good look at it, little dumpling. I don't want you coming back to me saying I've switched it, eh? I trust you, I said. Stuff and nonsense. The last guy who said that to me (a tourist who was convinced that Hemingway had invented the fabada stew during the San Fermín bull run) bought a copy of Hamlet signed by Shakespeare in ballpoint, imagine that. So keep your eyes peeled. In the book business, you can't even trust the index.

Do you know the best thing about broken hearts?' the librarian asked. I shook my head. 'They can only really break once. The rest is just scratches.

They teach us that human beings learn and absorb ideas and concepts through narrative, through stories, not through lessons or theoretical speeches. This is what any religious texts teach us. They're all tales about characters who must confront life and overcome obstacles, figures setting off on a journey of spiritual enrichment through exploits and revelations.

Poetry aside, a religion is really a moral code, that is expressed through legends, myths, or any type of literary device in order to establish a system of belifs, values, and rules with which to regulate a culture or a society.

Mi?o?? jest jak w?dlina: jest salami i jest mortadela.

Boeken zijn spiegels: je ziet slechts dat wat je zelf al in je draagt.

Los juramentos eran un poco como los corazones: roto el primero, los demás resultaban pan comido.