Carlos Ruiz Zafon Quotes

Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.

somethings can only be seen in the shadows

People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough.

...until that moment I had not understood that this was a story about lonely people, about absence and loss, and that that was why I had taken refuge in it until it became confused with my own life, like someone who has escaped into the pages of a novel because those whom he needs to love seem nothing more than ghosts inhabiting the mind of a stranger.

Barcelona is a very old city in which you can feel the weight of history; it is haunted by history. You cannot walk around it without perceiving it.

Driven by a wish to save Tomás from a life of penury and misunderstanding, Fermin had decided that he needed to develop my friend's latent conversational and social skills. Like the good ape he is, man is a social animal, characterized by cronyism, nepotism, corruption, and gossip. That's the intrinsic blueprint for our ethical behavior.

All true stories begin and end in a cemetery" - The Shadow of the Wind

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.

I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain. One of the great Catalan poets, Joan Maragall, wrote this famous poem in which he called Barcelona the great enchantress, or some kind of sorceress, and in which the city has this dark enticing presence that seduces and lures people. I think Barcelona has a lot of that.

Every labyrinth has its minotaur

The haunting of history is ever present in Barcelona. I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me, Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And its a woman whos extremely vain.

Time has taught me not to lose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either.

Remember me, even if it's only in a corner and secretly. Don't let me go.

I spend a lot of time in L.A., and when it rains there you get the entire rainfall for the year in two days, raindrops the size of mangoes. And in Barcelona, the Mediterranean storms come up from the sea, thunder and lightning; its like the end of the world.

A good liar knows that the most efficient lie is always a truth that has had a key piece removed from it.

Waiting is the rust of the soul.

Every book has a soul, the soul of the person who wrote it and the soul of those who read it and dream about it.

Once, in my father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that 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 we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return.

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

Sometimes we think people are like lottery tickets, that they're there to make our most absurd dreams come true.

One mustn't dream of one's future; one must earn it.

. . .sometimes one feels freer speaking to a stranger than to people one knows. Why is that?" “Probably because a stranger sees us the way we are, not as he wishes to think we are.

We think we understand a song's lyrics but what makes us believe in them, or not, is the music

Men are like chestnuts they sell in the street: they're all hot and they all smell good when you buy them, but when you take them out of the paper cone you realise that most of them are rotten inside.

It’s a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.

Not evil. Moronic, which isn't quite the same thing. Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. A moron or a lout, however, doesn't stop to think or reason. He acts on instinct, like a stable animal, convinced he's doing good, that he's always right, and sanctimoniously proud to go around f***ing up ... anyone he perceives to be different from himself, be it because of skin color, creed, language, nationality, or ... leisure habits. What the world needs is more thoroughly evil people and fewer borderline pigheads.

Never trust girls who let themselves be touched right away. But even less those who need a priest for approval.

There are no second chances in life, except to feel remorse.

Thunder and lightning, it's like the end of the world.

Julian once wrote that coincidences are the scars of fate. There are no coincidences, Daniel. We are puppets of our subconscious desires.

The moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you've already stopped loving that person forever.

I had never known the pleasure of reading, of exploring the recesses of the soul, of letting myself be carried away by imagination, beauty, and the mystery of fiction and language. For me all those things were born with that novel.

Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human.

Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art.

Life had taught her that we all require big and small lies in order to survive, just as much as we need air. She used to say that if during one single day, from dawn to dusk, we could see the naked reality of the world, and of ourselves, we would either take our own lives or lose our minds.

I've always thought that anyone who needs to join a herd so badly must be a bit of a sheep himself.

Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not the merits of who receives them.

Destiny doesn't do home visits... you have to go for it yourself.

There are two things in life you cannot choose. The first is your enemies; the second your family. Sometimes the difference between them is hard to see, but in the end time will show you that the cards you have been dealt could always have been worse.

Resentment slowly poisoned my blood and I laughed at myself and my absurd hopes.

The wider the author's arsenal of tools and the better technically equipped the storyteller is, the better the tale will be.

People talk too much. Humans aren't descended from monkeys. They come from parrots.

Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it.

I don't suppose you have many friends. Neither do I. I don't trust people who say they have a lot of friends. It's a sure sign that they don't really know anyone.

That afternoon the sky was scattered with black clouds galloping in from the sea and clustering over the city. Flashes of lightening echoed on the horizon and a charged warm wind smelling of dust announced a powerful summer storm. When I reached the station I noticed the first few drops, shiny and heavy, like coins falling from heaven...Night seemed to fall suddenly, interrupted only by the lightning now bursting over the city, leaving a trail of noise and fury.

that as long as we are being remembered, we remain alive.

Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.

Why is it that all wars are won by bankers?

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

People only disappear when they have somewhere to go