Quotes from Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I could tell you it's his heart, but what is really killing him is loneliness. Memories are worse than bullets.

Never trust girls who let themselves be touched right away. But even less those who need a priest for approval. Good sirloin steak – if you'll excuse the comparison – needs to be cooked until it's medium rare. Of course, if the opportunity arises, don't be prudish, and go for the kill

The storm had caused the power to go out; the streets were buried in a liquid darkness speckled here and there with the light cast by oil lamps or candles from balconies and doors.

Vrijeme ?ini s tijelom ono što glupost ?ini s dušom. Kvari ga.

A story has no beginning and no end, only points of entry.

That afternoon of mist and drizzle, Clara Barcelo stole my heart, my breath, and my sleep. In the haunted shade of the Ateneo, her hands wrote a curse on my skin that was to hound me for years.

That world seemed to have vanished, but for a long time the image I had of my father, which I still preserve today, was that of a thin man wearing an old suit that was too large for him and a secondhand hat he had bought on Calle Condal for seven pesetas, a man who could not afford to buy his son a wretched pen that was useless but seemed to mean everything to him.

Nobody can feel more compassion for a fibber than another fibber.

Legions of men, butchered for the greater glory and the profit margins of bankers, chancellors, generals, stockbrokers, and other fathers of the nation, had been maimed and ruined for life in the name of freedom, democracy, the Empire, the race, or the flag…. Take your pick.

Sólo desaparece la gente que tiene algún sitio adonde ir

We set off towards the square, where a knot of old folks hovered around the local pigeon community, their lives reduced to a ritual of spreading crumbs and waiting.

You're only free up to the point where you ignore the truth.

It's funny how we judge others and don't realize the extent of our disdain until they are no longer there, until they are taken from us. They're taken from us because they've never been ours...

Are you not tempted to create a story for which men and women would live and die, for which they would be capable of killing and allowing them to be killed, of sacrificing and condemning themselves, of handling over their souls?

For me, Nuria Montfort was like a mirage: you don't question its veracity, you simply follow it until it vanishes or until it destroys you.

Cuando llovía con fuerza, Max sentía que el tiempo se detenía. Era como una tregua en la cual uno podía dejar de hacer cualquier cosa que le ocupase en aquel momento y sencillamente acercarse a contemplar el espectáculo de aquella infinita cortina de lágrimas del cielo desde una ventana, durante horas. Dejó de nuevo el libro sobre la mesita y apagó la luz. Lentamente, envuelto en el sonido hipnótico de la lluvia, se rindió al sueño.

What a mess the world is in," cried the man, reading the news in his paper. "It seems that in the advanced stages of stupidity, a lack of ideas is compensated for by an excess of ideologies.

It is one thing to believe in women, and another to believe what they say.

Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. A moron or a lout, however, doesn't stop to think or reason.

Esta gente que ve pecado en todas partes está enferma del alma y, si me apuras, de los intestinos.

el arte de leer se está muriendo muy lentamente, que es un ritual íntimo, que un libro es un espejo y que sólo podemos encontrar en él lo que ya llevamos dentro, que al leer ponemos la mente y el alma, y que ésos son bienes cada día más escasos.

In this dog-eat-dog world, he thought, when you get old and even common sense hurts, a crumb of kindness or pity is a dish fit for the gods.

Ovaj svijet ne?e uništiti atomska bomba, kao što kažu novine, nego ?e umrijeti od smijeha, od banalnosti, od ismijavanja svega, i zato što ?e od svega praviti vic, i to loš vic.

When a rat sneaks in, there's no way of getting rid of it. You give it poison, and it eats it. You set up a rat trap, and it shits on it. A rat is the most difficult thing in the world to get rid of. Because rats are cowards. Because they hide. Because they think they're cleverer than you.