Carlos Ruiz Zafon

“Nobody knows much about women, not even Freud, not even women themselves. But it's like electricity: you don't need to know how it works to get a shock on the fingers.”

“I knew that Clara kept Carax's book in a glass cabinet by the arch of the balcony. I crept up to it. My plan, or my lack of it, was to lay my hands on the book, take it out of there, give it to that lunatic, and lose sight of him forever after. Nobody would notice the book's absence, except me. Carax's book was waiting for me, as it always did, its spine just visible at the end of a shelf. I took it in my hands and pressed it against my chest, as if embracing an old friend whom I was about to betray. Judas, I thought. I decided to leave the place without making Clara aware of my presence. I would take the book and disappear from Clara's life forever. Quietly, I stepped out of the library. The door of her bedroom was just visible at the end of the corridor...I walked slowly up to the door. I put my fingers on the doorknob. My fingers trembled. I had arrived too late. I swallowed hard and opened the door.”

“We seem to live in a world where forgetting and oblivion are an industry in themselves and very, very few people are remotely interested or aware of their own recent history, much less their neighbors'. I tend to think we are what we remember, what we know. The less we remember, the less we know about ourselves, the less we are. (Interview with Three Monkeys Online, October 2008)”

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

“Old age is the lubricant of belief. When death knocks at the door, skepticism flies out the window. A serious cardiovascular fright and a person will even believe in Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Theory is the practice of the impotent.”

“In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom.”

“Perhaps for that very reason, I adored her all the more, because of the eternal human stupidity of pursuing those who hurt us the most.”

“Me incliné sobre ella y recorrí la piel de su vientre con la yema del dedo. Bea dejó caer los párpados, los ojos y me sonrió, segura y fuerte.-Hazme lo que quieras... -susurró.Tenía diecisiete años y la vida en los labios.”

“We exist as long as somebody remembers us.”

“Don Basilio was a forbidding-looking man with a bushy mustache who did not suffer fools and who subscribed to the theory that the liberal use of adverbs and adjectives was the mark of a pervert or someone with a vitamin deficiency.”

“Aquella noche Mijail me contó que él creía que la vida nos concede a cada uno de nosotros unos escasos momentos de pura felicidad. A veces son sólo dias o semanas. A veces, años. Todo depende de nuestra fortuna. El recuerdo de esos momentos nos acompaña para siempre y se transforma en un país de la memoria al que tratamos de regresar durante el resto de nuestra vida sin consegurilo.”

“Los artistas viven en el futuro o en el pasado; nunca en el presente. Germán vive de recuerdos. Es todo cuanto tiene”

“Siempre había pensado que las viejas estaciones de ferrocarril eran uno de los pocos lugares mágicos que quedaban en el mundo. En ellas se mezclaban los fantasmas de recuerdos y despedidas con el inicio de cientos de viajes a destinos lejanos, sin retorno. "Si algun dia me pierdo, que me busquen en una estación de tren", pensé.”

“- Y usted qué es, Óscar? de derechas o de izquierdas?- Óscar es ácrata, papá - cortó MarinaEl pedazo de pan se me atragantó. No sabía lo que significaba aquella palabra, pero sonaba a anarquista en bicicleta.”

“Mi mejor amigo en el internado era un chaval de ojos penetrantes y temperamento nervioso que insistia responder a las siglas JF (...) Era de constitución débil y bastaba con mencionar la palavra microbio en un radio de 1km a la redonda para que él creyese que había pillado una infección. Una vez busqué en un diccionario el término hipocondríaco y le saqué una copia.-No sé si lo sabías, pero tu biografía viene en el diccionario de la Real Academia - le anuncié.Echó un vistazo a la fotocopia y me lanzó una mirada de alcayata.-Prueba a buscar en la "i" de idiota y verás que no soy el único famoso - replicó JF”

“Todos tenemos un secreto encerrado bajo llave en el ático del alma. Éste es el mío.”

“Não conhecia o prazer de ler, de explorar portas que se nos abrem na alma, de nos abandonarmos à imaginação, à beleza e ao mistério da ficção e da linguagem.”

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

“In this world the only opinion that holds court is prejudice.”

“Jacinta never told Penelope that she loved her. The nurse knew that those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words.”

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

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

“It's up to you how you waste your time and money. I'm staying here to read: life's too short.”

“I turned you into a stranger in order to forget you and now I'm the stranger.”

“Whether we realise it or not, most of us define ourselves by opposing rather than by favouring something or someone. To put it another way, it is easier to react than to act.”

“Sonreí y ofrecí mi mejor cara de idiota.”

“Una vez busqué en un diccionario el término "hipocondríaco" y lesaqué una copia.-No sé si lo sabías, pero tu biografía viene en el Diccionario de la RealAcademia le anuncié.Echó un vistazo a la fotocopia y me lanzó una mirada de alcayata.-Prueba a buscar en la "i" de idiota y verás que no soy el únicofamoso replicó JF.”

“Como ladrón no valía un céntimo, pero como mentiroso debo confesar que siempre fui un artista.”

“-La paciencia es la madre de la ciencia -ofreció Marina.-Y la madrina de la demencia -repliqué.”

“Al fin y al cabo, ¿qué clase de ciencia es ésa, capaz de poner un hombre en la luna pero incapaz de poner un pedazo de pan en la mesa de cada ser humano?”

“This place is a mystery. A sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it & the soul of those who read it & lived it & dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down it's pages, it's spirit grows & strengthens. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands, a new spirit...”

“Marina me dijo una vez que sólo recordamos lo que nunca sucedió”

“It is part of our nature to survive. Faith is an instinctive response to aspects of existence that we cannot explain by any other means - be it the moral void we perceive in the universe, the certainty of death, the mystery of the origin of things, the meaning of our own lives or the absence of meaning.”

“He (Intellectuals) claims that label to compensate for his own inadequacies. It's as old as that saying: tell me what you boast of and I'll tell you what you lack. Our daily bread. The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as excessively devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant and the feeble-minded as intellectual.”

“They (fables) teach us that human beings learn and absorb ideas and concepts through narrative, through stories, not through lessons or theoretical speeches.”

“I looked up towards the immensity of the labyrinth."How does one choose a single book among so many?"Isaac shrugged his shoulders.'Some like to believe it's the book that chooses the person...destiny, in other words.”

“With women, the best part is the discovery. There's nothing like the first time, nothing. You don't know what life is until you undress a woman for the first time. A button at a time, like peeling a hot sweet potato on a winter's night.”

“There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds.”

“A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.”

“Few things leave a deeper mark on the reader, than the first book that finds its way to his heart.”

“He was waiting for me at the best table in the room, toying with a glass of white wine and listening to the pianist who was playing a piece by Granados with velvet fingers.”

“Routine is the housekeeper of inspiration”

“It's only worth staying in bed if you're young and in good company.”

“I've always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don't have a brain.”

“But if you like, you can come share a tasty meal of bread, raisins, and fresh Burgos cheese. With that, and The Count of Monte Cristo, anyone can live to a hundred.”

“Nothing important is learned; it is simply remembered.”

“I was no longer able to hear the music that issues from a decent piece of prose.”

“You have more zeal than good taste, Martín. The disease afflicting you has a name, and that is Grand Guignol: it does to drama what syphilis does to your privates. Getting it might be pleasurable, but from then on it's all downhill.”

“A bit of exercise lifts the spirit. (The Angel's Game)”