Quotes from Carlos Ruiz Zafon

There are no modest books, only arrogant ignorance.

licor es como el matarratas o la generosidad: cuanto más se usa, menos efecto tiene.

as we are remembered, we remain alive.

Sophie sintió por él ese anémico desprecio que despiertan las cosas que más deseamos sin saberlo.

Nikad nikome nemoj vjerovati, Daniele, posebice ne onima kojima se diviš. Oni ?e ti prvi zabiti nož u le?a.

El pasado no desaparece, por mucho que se esfuercen los necios en olvidarlo y los embaucadores en falsificarlo para venderlo otra vez como si fuera nuevo.

Sabe o que têm de melhor os corações despedaçados? - perguntou a bibliotecária. Fiz-lhe um sinal negativo. -Só se podem despedaçar uma vez. Tudo o resto são arranhões.

Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. This

Time goes faster the more hollow it is.

Jorge siempre viviría a la sombra de su privilegio, entre algodones y fracasos. Penélope, la preciosa Penélope, era mujer y por tanto tesoro, no tesorero. Julián, que tenía alma de poeta, y por tanto de asesino, reunía las cualidades.

Nekada davno, u djetinjstvu, možda is toga što sam odrastao me?u knjigama i knjižarima, odlu?io sam da želim postati pisac i živjeti životom punim melodrame.

La muerte tiene estas cosas: a todo el mundo lo despierta la sensiblería. Frente a un ataúd, todos vemos sólo lo bueno o lo que queremos ver.

Alguien dijo una vez que en el momento en que te paras a pensar si quieres a alguien, ya has dejado de quererle para siempre—dije. Bea buscó

The most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach them to want to imitate the rich. That is the poison with which capitalism blinds the—

It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being.

There I learned that one can forget almost everything in life, beginning with bad smells, and that if there was one thing I aspired to, it was not to die in a place like that. In the low hours—which were most hours—I told myself that if anything was going to get me out of there before an outbreak of tuberculosis did the job, it was literature, and if that pricked anyone's soul, or their balls, they could scratch them with a brick.

Paris requires more than two days," said Julián. "It won't listen to reason.

This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens

Šest dana tijekom kojih je ne?e vidjeti, ni dodirnuti, ?inili su mu se kao ?itava vje?nost.

It was my twenty-fourth birthday, and I knew that the best part of my life was already behind me.

Julián had once told me that a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.

most of the great religions were either born or reached their apogee at a time when the societies that adopted them had a younger and poorer demographic base. Societies in which 70 per cent of the population was under the age of eighteen - half of them men with their veins bursting with violence and the urge to procreate

Everyday I became more convinced that good literature has little or nothing to do with trivial fancies such as "inspiration" or "having something to tell" and more with the engineering of language, with the architecture of narrative , with the painting of texture, with the timrbres and colors of the staging. With the cinematography of words, and the music that can be produced by an orchestra of ideas

Some things can only be seen in the dark.