Quotes from Carlos Ruiz Zafon

She wanted to believe him with the yearning that comes with the suspicion that truth hurts, and that cowards live longer and better, even if they do so in the prison of their own lies.

Every self-respecting act of persuasion must find appeal to curiosity, then to vanity, and lastly to kindness or remorse. Isabella looked down and slowly nodded.

Il est des déceptions qui honorent celui qui les inspire.

Das Schicksal lauert immer gleich um die Ecke - wie ein Dieb, eine Nutte oder ein Losverkäufer, seine drei trivialsten Verkörperungen. Hausbesuche macht es hingegen keine. Man muß sich schon zu ihm bemühen.

Write," he said. "I'll write to you as soon as I get there," answered Julián. "No. Not to me. Write books. Not letters. Write them for me, for Penélope." Julián nodded, realizing only then how much he was going to miss his friend. "And keep your dreams," said Miquel. "You never know when you might need them." "Always," murmured Julián, but the roar of the train had already stolen his words.

A él le hubiere gustado saber que alguien le quería mantener vivo, que le recordaba. El solía decir que existimos mientras alguien nos recuerda.

I was no longer able to hear the music that issues from a decent piece of prose.

Before I knew it, I'll be thirty and I'll realise that everday I look less the person I wanted to be when I was fifteen. (The Angel's Game)

How old is the lad?' inquired Barceló, inspecting me out of the corner of his eye. 'Almost eleven,' I announced. Barceló flashed a sly smile. 'In other words, ten. Don't add on any years, you rascal. Life will see to that without your help.

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

Nothing is more surprising or frightening than what one already knows.

Don Basilio was a severe, forbidden-looking man who did not suffer fools and who subscribed to the theory that the liberal use of adverbs and adjectives was the mark of a pervert or of someone with a vitamin deficiency.

In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner.

Americans are inventing something called television, which will be like the cinema, only at home. There'll be no more need for books, or churches, or anything.

Fermin shook his head. 'And is that why you believe that if you manage to unravel the mystery of Julian Carax and rescue him from oblivion, the face of your mother will come back to you?' I looked at him. There was no irony or judgment in his expression. For a moment Fermin Romero de Torres seemed to me the wisest and most lucid man in the universe.

The world is simply the reflection of those of us who make it up.

All the bad things you do in life come back to you, (David). And I've done a lot of bad things. A lot. But I've paid the price. (The Angel's Game)

the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.

O talento natural é como a força de um atleta. Pode-se nascer com mais ou menos faculdades, mas ninguém consegue ser um atleta simplesmente por ter nascido alto ou forte ou rápido. O que faz um atleta, ou um artista é o trabalho , o ofício e a técnica. A inteligência com que se nasce é simplesmente a munição. Para se chegar a fazer alguma coisa com ela é necessário transformarmos a nossa mente numa arma de precisão.

El tiempo no nos hace más sabios, sólo más cobardes

Una leyenda es una mentira pergeñada para explicar una verdad universal. Los lugares donde la mentira y el espejismo envenenan la tierra son particularmente fértiles para su cultivo.

Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory

Truth is never perfect, never squares with all expectations. Truth always poses doubts and questions. Only lies are one hundred percent believable, because they don't need to justify reality, they simply have to tell us what we want to hear.

Books are mirrors - you only see in them what you already have inside you