Carlos Ruiz Zafon

“Sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger than someone you know. Why is that?”“Probably because a stranger sees us the way we are, not as they wish us to be”

“I don't belong to any side. What's more, I think flags are nothing but painted rags that represent rancid emotions. Just seeing someone wrapped up in one of them, spewing out hymns, badges and speeches, gives me the runs. I've always thought that anyone who needs to join a herd so badly must be a bit of a sheep himself”

“Everything is a story, a narrative, a sequence of events with characters communicating an emotional content.”

“Making money isn't hard in itself. What's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting your life to.”

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

“Envy is the religion of the mediocre”

“Life has enough torturers as it is, without you going around moonlighting as a Grand Inquisitor against yourself.”

“Whether we realize it or not, most of us define ourselves by opposing rather than by favoring something or someone. To put it another way, it is easier to react than to act. Nothing arouses a passion for dogma more than a good antagonist. And the more unlikely, the better. … It’s difficult to hate an idea. … It’s much easier to hate someone with a recognizable face whom we can blame for everything that makes us feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t have to be an individual character. It could be a nation, a race, a group … anything.”

“They teach us that human beings learn and absorb ideas and concepts through narrative, through stories, not through lessons or theoretical speeches. This is what any religious texts teach us. They’re all tales about characters who must confront life and overcome obstacles, figures setting off on a journey of spiritual enrichment through exploits and revelations.”

“Fools talk, cowards silence , wise men listen”

“Pero usted es el hombre y le toca llevar la iniciativa. Aquello empezaba a adquirir un cariz funesto. —¿ La iniciativa? ¿Yo? —¿ Qué quiere? Algún precio tenía que tener el poder mear de pie.”

“Yo creo que nada sucede por casualidad, ¿sabes? Que, en el fondo, las cosas tienen su plan secreto, aunque nosotros no lo entendamos.”

“O talento natural é como a força de um atleta. Pode-se nascer com mais ou menos faculdades, mas ninguém consegue ser um atleta simplesmente por ter nascido alto ou forte ou rápido. O que faz um atleta, ou um artista é o trabalho , o ofício e a técnica. A inteligência com que se nasce é simplesmente a munição. Para se chegar a fazer alguma coisa com ela é necessário transformarmos a nossa mente numa arma de precisão.”

“Toda a arte é agressiva, Isabella. E toda a vida de artista é uma pequena ou uma grande guerra, a começar pelo próprio e pelas suas limitações. Para chegar a alguma coisa que te proponhas é preciso primeiro a ambição e depois o talento, o conhecimento e, por fim, a oportunidade.”

“Hay pocas razones para decir la verdad, pero para mentir el número es infinito.”

“Ich habe mir immer gedacht, wer sich einer Herde angehörig zugehörig fühlt, hat etwas von einem Hammel.”

“Meinem Eindruck nach ist der arme Martin nicht einmal in der Lage, seine Schugröße niederzuschreiben, und verharrt meistens in einer Art von Fegefeuer, das er in seinem eigenen Kopf aufgebaut hat, wo ihn Gewissensbisse und Schmerz bei lebendigem Leib aufzehren.”

“Wissen sie, Daniel, manchmal denke ich, Darwin hat sich geirrt, und in Wirklichkeit stammt der Mensch vom Schwein oder vom Hund ab, denn in acht von zehn Hominiden steckt ein Schweinehund, der darauf wartet, rausgelassen zu werden.”

“Leute mit kleiner Seele versuchen immer, die anderen herabzusetzen.”

“Leger, huwelijk, kerk en bankwezen: de vier ruiters van de apocalyps.”

“Poklon se daje zbog radosti onog ko poklanja, a ne zbog zasluga onog ko prima.”

“Kadkad vjerujemo da su osobe sedmice na lutriji: da postoje da bi ostvarile nase besmislene iluzije.”

“A letra da canção é o que julgamos entender, mas o que nos faz acreditar nela é sempre a música.”

“Time has taught me not to loose hope , yet not to trust too much in hope either”

“Hope is cruel and has no consequence”

“There are no condidences . We are puppets of our subconscious desires”

“Inspiration comes when you stick your elbows on the table, your bottom on the chair and you start sweating. Choose a theme, an idea, and squeeze your brain until it hurts. That's called inspiration.”

“Let's shake hands and be friends, but please, I beg you, stop farting like that, because I'm beginning to hallucinate and in my dreams I see Comrade Joseph Stalin doing the Charleston.”

“Não confio nas pessoas que têm muitos amigos. É sinal de que não conhecem os outros.”

“I wandered off, walking through streets that seemed emptier than ever, thinking that if I didn't stop, if I kept on walking, I wouldn't notice that the world I thought I knew was no longer there.”

“Where he had failed, I would triumph.Where he had lost his way, I would find the path out of the labyrinth.”

“In principle I'm an atheist, although in fact I have a lot of faith”

“Me sentí rodeado de millones de páginas abandonadas, de universos y almas sin dueño, que se hundían en un océano de oscuridad mientras el mundo que palpitaba fuera de aquellos muros perdía la memoria sin darse cuenta día tras día, sintiéndose más sabio cuanto más olvidaba.”

“Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories, as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors, its identity fragmented into endless reflections.”

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

“...sólo era alguien en el mundo invisible de la ciudad de los pobres y los intocables. Hay épocas y lugares en los que no ser nadie es más honorable que ser alguien."El prisionero del cielo”

“Yo no soy de ningún bando —repuso Fermín—. Es más, las banderas me parecen trapos de colores que huelen a rancio y me basta ver a cualquiera que se envuelva en ellas y se le llene la boca de himnos, escudos y discursos para que me entren cagarrinas. Siempre he pensado que el que siente mucho apego a un rebaño es que tiene algo de borrego.El prisionero del cielo”

“«Es que la gente es mala...» «Mala no; imbécil, que no es lo mismo. El mal presupone una determinación moral, intención y cierto pensamiento. El imbécil o cafre no se para a pensar ni a razonar. Actúa por instinto, como bestia del establo, convencido de que hace el bien, de que siempre tiene la razón y orgulloso de ir jodiendo, con perdón, a todo aquel que se le antoja diferente a él mismo, bien sea por el color, por creencia, por idioma, por nacionalidad, o por sus hábitos de ocio. Lo que hace falta en el mundo es más gente mala de verdad y menos cazurros limítrofes.»”

“I found my father asleep in his dining-room armchair, with a blanket over his legs and his favorite book open in his hands--a copy of Voltaire's Candide, which he reread a couple of times a year, the only times I heard him laugh heartily. I observed him: his hair was gray, thinning, and the skin on his face had begun to sag around his cheekbones. I looked at that man whom I had once imagined almost invincible; he now seemed fragile, defeated without knowing it. Perhaps we were both defeated. I leaned over to cover him with the blanket he had been promising to give away to charity for years, and I kissed his forehead, as if by doing so I could protect him from the invisible threads that kept him away from me, from that tiny apartment, and from my memories, as if I believed that with that kiss I could deceive time and convince it to pass us by, to return some other day, some other life.”

“I imagined Julián Caraxat my age, holding that image in his hands, perhaps in the shade of the same tree that now sheltered me. I could almost see him smiling confidently, contemplating a future as wide and luminous as that avenue, and for a moment I thought there were no more ghosts there than that of absence and loss that the light that smiled on me was borrowed light, real only as long as I could hold it in my eyes, second by second.”

“We looked at each other in the half-light, searching for words that didn't exist.”

“Six years later my mother's absence remained in the air around us, a deafening silence that I had not learned to stifle with words.”

“Los libros son espejos: sólo se ve en ellos lo que uno ya lleva dentro.”

“My father sighed, hiding behind the sad smile thatfollowed him like a shadow all through his life.”

“Peleé cada palabra, cada frase, cada giro, cada imagen y cada letra como sí fuesen las últimas que fuera a escribir.”

“Are you not tempted to create a story for which men and women would live and die, for which they would be capable of killing and allowing them to be killed, of sacrificing and condemning themselves, of handling over their souls?”

“That's what happens when people reach old age; nobody remembers they've been bastards too.”

“God bless, and don't hesitate never to come back here again.”

“Those were the words she wanted to hear and she finally surrendered to the temptation of believing them.”

“Those times, against all expectations, were turning out to be good times. Then he felt afraid, because he knew they couldn't last long and those stolen drops of happiness and peace would evaporate.”