Quotes from Carlos Ruiz Zafon

La vida pasa volando, especialmente la parte que vale la pena vivir.

we were always two fugitives riding on the spine of a book, eager to escape into worlds of fiction and secondhand dreams.

En mi mundo, la muerte era una mano anónima e incomprensible, un vendedor a domicilio que se llevaba madres, mendigos o vecinos nonagenarios como si se tratase de una lotería del infierno.

Fear is the gunpowder and hatred is the fuse. Dogma, the final ingredient, is only a lighted match.

La experiencia ya le había enseñado que el futuro la reservaría más tiempo del tolerable para lamentarse de los errores cometidos en el pasado

him at all. He ignored Valls's

In other words, ten. Don't add on any years, you rascal. Life will see to that without your help.

Every afternoon, when we parted, I walked back home dreaming about the moment when I would rescue her from that existence marked by absences, from that night visitor who scared her, from that pampered life that stole the light from her with every passing day. Every afternoon I told myself that I wasn't going to forget her and that, so long as I remembered her, I'd be able to save her.

This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul.

Dogma must form part of identity itself. Whoever questions it is our enemy. He is evil. And it is our right and our duty to confront and destroy him.

Ha querido Dios, o quien en su ausencia el cargo ostente, que sea más fácil ser padre y traer una criatura al mundo que obtener el carnet de conducir

One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it.

We all remain silent and they try to convince us that what we've seen, what we've done, what we've learned about ourselves and about others, is an illusion, a nightmare that will pass. Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what really happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour everything they left behind.

Os livros são espelhos:só se vê neles o que a pessoa tem dentro.

Nadie es lo que parece

it occurred to me that perhaps the papier-mâche world that I accepted as real was only a stage setting.

Love, with a capital L and a tight skirt, had knocked on his door. Technically it hadn't knocked; it had just walked past his door, to be precise. Yet he believed that, like a stubborn toothache, fate didn't let go of you until you faced it with courage. All the more so where love was concerned.

Nulla che valga la pena in questa vita è facile.

Às vezes julgamos que as pessoas são décimos da lotaria:que estão ali para tornar realidade as nossas ilusões absurdas.

Rara vez en la historia de este país se ha encontrado al frente de una institución cultural a alguien cualificado, o al menos no incompetente sin remedio. Se aplican estrictos controles y hay numeroso personal especializado para impedir que eso suceda. La meritocracia y el clima mediterráneo son incompatibles por necesidad

I'd always say to her, 'All right, if you don't invite me, I won't go,' and she'd answer, 'I don't need to invite you to my home, Father. One only invites strangers.

there were no more ghosts there than those of absence and loss

Nothing arouses a passion for dogma more than a good antagonist.

Todo en la vida lo ha hecho alguien antes, al menos lo que vale la pena hacer. El truco está en tratar de hacerlo un poco mejor.