Quotes from Paulo Coelho

She wasn't afraid of difficulties, what frightened her was having to choose one particular path. Choosing a path meant missing out on others. She had a whole life to live and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now.

It hurt when I lost each the various men I fell in love with. Now, though, I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.

By taking risks. By risking failure, disappointment, disillusion, but never ceasing in your search for Love, as long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end.

Respect those who grew up and learned alongside you. Respect those who taught you.

You had to take risks, follow some paths and abandon others.

Nothing will behave in the logical way you have come to expect.

I've always been a very restless person. I work hard, spend too much time looking after my son, I dance like a mad thing, I learned calligraphy. I go to courses on selling, I read one book after another. But that's all a way of avoiding those moments when nothing is happening, because those blank spaces give me a feeling of absolute emptiness, in which not a single crumb of love exists.

When you say 'yes' to others, make sure you're not saying 'no' to yourself.

We could go back to the time when we first met: a man in emotional tatters over someone who had left him, and a woman madly in love with her neighbor. I could repeat what I said to you once: 'I'm going to fight to the bitter end.' Well, I fought and I lost, and now I'll just have to lick my wounds and leave.

This last week has been a little hell for both of us simply because I didn't understand my own feelings. And because I can't understand them, I blame her for provoking in me feelings that make my world seem suddenly unsafe.

Life is an act of faith.

Stay close to those who sing, tell stories, and enjoy life, and whose eyes sparkle with happiness. Because happiness is contagious and will always manage to find a solution, whereas logic can find only an explanation for the mistake made.

All you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation. Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there.

We live in a vale of tears...We can have all the dreams we like, but life is hard, implacable, sad.

And because of our selfishness, we will be condemned to the worst torture humankind ever invented for itself: loneliness.

but this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves.

Once in a mental hospital, a person grows used to the the freedom that exists in the world of insanity and becomes addicted to it.

When we want something, we have to have a clear purpose in mind for the thing that we want. The only reason for seeking a reward is to know what to do with that reward

Quando se ama não é preciso entender o que se passa lá fora, pois tudo passa a acontecer dentro de nós

Para la mayoría de las personas, la generosidad consiste en sólo dar. Pero recibir es también un acto de amor. Permitir que el otro nos haga feliz también lo hará feliz a él.

How's the water? asked her father. It's lovely, she replided. Right, from now on, whenever you want to find out about something, plunge straight in.

He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dreamed of.

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Defeat is for those who, despite their fears, live with enthusiasm and faith.