Quotes from Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A middle-aged man, of middling height, middling baldness, and middling middlingness, was sitting at the table.

No podía oír su voz o sentir su tacto, pero su luz y su calor ardían en cada rincón de aquella casa.

The savagery, I mean. It goes away, and you feel safe, but it always returns, it always returns…and it chokes us.

I found a tin of English chocolate biscuits and decided to have some. Half an hour later, my veins pumping with sugar and caffeine, my brain started to work and I had the brilliant idea of beginning the day by complicating my existence even further, if that was possible.

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.

In Martín's novel, the book that had kept Fermín company all those months, one of the characters swore that the best way of disarming the authorities was to speak to them first before they addressed you.

Rest now, my friend. Heaven can wait. And hell is too small for you.

Do you know the best thing about broken hearts?... They can only really break once. The rest is just scratches.

and you decide you want to learn how to rob a bank, or how to set one up, which is much the same thing, come and see me...

Stories have no beginning and no end, only doors through which one may enter them. A story is an endless labyrinth of words, images and spirits, conjured up to show us the invisible truth about ourselves. A story is, after all, a conversation between the narrator and the reader, and just as narrators can only relate as far as their ability will permit, so too readers can only read as far as what is already written in their souls.

The heavy mantle of collective forgetfulness seemed to descend around us the day the weapons went quiet. In those days I learned that nothing is more frightening than a hero who lives to tell his story, to tell what all those who fell at his side will never be able to tell.

Arra jutott, hogy az ember nem is tudja magáról, kicsoda, míg meg nem tanul gy?lölni. És ha úgy igazából gy?löl - mikor belefeledkezik a belsejét égetÅ' dühbe, mely lassan elemészti azt a kevés jót is, amirÅ'l még úgy hitte, hordozza magában -, azt titokban teszi.

Son las alimañas mezquinas quienes siempre se sienten virtuosas y miran al resto del mundo por encima del hombro.

Non esistono libri modesti, capitano, ma ignoranze superbe.

Siempre le había fascinado cómo, si uno sabía leer el lenguaje de las miradas y del tiempo, podía adivinar en un rostro el semblante del niño que había sido y saborear el momento en que el mundo le había clavado su dardo envenenado y su espíritu había empezado a envejecer.

Because without truth there is no justice, and without justice there is no peace.

There are times and places where not to be anyone is more honorable than to be someone.

We think we understand a songs lyrics, but what makes us believe in them, or not, is the music.

It's not such a bad idea. Self-deceit is the key to all impossible ventures.

Una delle tante insidie dell'infanzia è che non è necessario capire per soffrire. Ma quando arriva l'età della ragione, le ferite non possono essere sanate.

Esto es como la electricidad, no hace falta saber cómo funciona para picarse los dedos

yours. A man with a head, a heart, and a soul. A man capable of listening, of leading and respecting a child, and not of drowning his own defects in him. Someone whom a child will not only love because he's his father but will also admire for the person he is. Someone he would want to grow up to resemble.

We can even believe that we don't believe in anything, which is the greatest credulity of them all.

As a child she'd remember everything. Everything. Then children grow up, and you no longer know what they think or what they feel. And that's how it should be, I suppose.