Paulo Coelho

“It wasn't a dance, but the complete absence of noise and movement, the silence, that brought me in contact with myself.”

“Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. "Once upon a time" is how all the best children's stories begin, and "prostitute" is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let's keep that beginning.”

“Ako ja povjerujem u pobjedu, i pobjeda će povjerovati u mene. Nijedan život nije potpun bez malog dodira ludosti.”

“A person who goes in search of God is wasting his time. He can walk a thousand roads and join many religions and sects–but he'll never find God that way. God is here, right now, at our side. We can see Him in this mist, in the ground we're walking on, even in my shoes. His angels keep watch while we sleep and help us in our work. In order to find God, you have only to look around. But meeting Him is not easy. The more God asks us to participate in Hismysteries, the more disoriented we become, because He asks us constantly tofollow our dreams and our hearts. And that's difficult to do when we're used to living in a different way. Finally we discover, to our surprise, that God wants us to be happy, because He is the father.”

“The day drags along, you make thousands of plans, you imagine every possible conversation, you promise to change your behavior in certain ways–and you feel more and more anxious until your loved one arrives. But by then, you don't know what to say. The hours of waiting have been transformed into tension, the tension has become fear, and the fear makes you embarrassed about showing affection.”

“A divided kingdom cannot defend itself from its adversaries. A divided person cannot face life in a dignified way.”

“God, I am trying to recover my faith. Please don't abandon me in the middle ofthis adventure, I prayed, pushing my fears aside.”

“Thy will be done, my Lord. Because you know the weakness in the heart of yourchildren, and you assign each of them only the burden they can bear. May youunderstand my love–because it is the only thing I have that is really mine, the only thing that I will be able to take with me into the next life. Please allow it to be courageous and pure; please make it capable of surviving the snares of the world.”

“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.”

“Ağızlar açılmıyorsa, söylenecek önemli bir şey var demektir.”

“‎Mutluluğun aşk olduğunu söylüyorlar.oysa aşk mutluluk getirmez, hiçbir zaman da getirmemiştir. Tam tersine, sürekli bir kaygı durumudur aşk, bir savaş meydanıdır; kendi kendimize sürekli olarak acaba doğru mu yapıyorum diye sorduğumuz uykusuz gecelerdir.”

“At any given moment in our lives, there are certain things that could have happened but didn't. The magic momentsgo unrecognized, and then suddenly, the hand of destiny changes everything.”

“Don't live every day as if it were your last. Live every day as if it were your first.”

“Once someone asked me, "What do you want to be your epitaph?" So I said, "Paulo Coelho died when he was alive.”

“I am talking to you, but the moment I am talking to you, the universe is being created and destroyed.”

“Each time we embrace someone warmly, we gain an extra day of life.”

“True wisdom consists in respecting the simple things we do”

“Only children believe they're capable of everything.”

“We become imprisoned by our memories, and that makes our lives wretched.”

“When we're focused on what we want, things begin to slot perfectly into place.”

“To injure your opponent is to injure yourself.”

“It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory”

“A life without a cause is a life without effect.”

“What happens once will never happen again. But what happens twice will surely happen a third time.”

“Only two things can reveal life's great secrets: suffering and love.”

“No one ever loses anyone. We are all one soul that needs to continue growing and developing in order for the world to carry on and for us all to meet once again.”

“What hurts us is what heals us”

“God only allows us to see such things when he wants something to change”

“If I believe I will win, then victory will believe in me.”

“If what you found was made from pure matter, it will never spoil. And you can come back one day. If it was just one moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you will find nothing on your return. But you would have seen an explosion of light. And that alone would already be worth the journey.”

“Even stopped clocks are right twice a day.”

“Kada covek dublje zagleda u dusu sveta, lako shvati da na svetu uvek postoji jedna osoba koja ceka onu drugu, bilo to nasred neke pustinje ili nasred nekog velikog grada... I kada se te osobe sretnu i njihovi pogledi se ukrste, sva proslost i sva buducnost gube svaki znacaj... i samo postoji taj trenutak”

“Certain people, in their eagerness to construct a world no external threat can penetrate build exaggeratedly high defense againts the outside world, againts new people, new places, different experiences and leave their own world stripped bare. It is there that bitterness begins irrevocable work.”

“Look around. And don't get close to people who make you suffer.”

“We women, when we’re searching for a meaning to our lives or for the path of knowledge, always identify with one of four classic archetypes.The Virgin (and I’m not speaking here of a sexual virgin) is the one whose search springs from her complete independence, and everything she learns is the fruit of her ability to face challenges alone. The Martyr finds her way to self-knowledge through pain, surrender and suffering.The Saint finds her true reason for living in unconditional love and in her ability to give without asking anything in return.Finally, the Witch justifies her existence by going in search of complete and limitless pleasure.”

“Don't be like those people who believe in "positive thinking" and tell themselves that they're loved and strong and capable. You don't need to do that because you know it already. And when you doubt it — which happens, I think, quite often at this stage of evolution — do as I suggested. Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh. Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it. Now go back and meet all those people who think you know everything. Convince yourself that they're right, because we all know everything, it's merely a question of believing.”

“Does he love me?“You’re asking the wrong question. What you need to know is are you in a position to give him the love he needs. And whatever happens or doesn’t happen will be equally gratifying, knowing that you are capable of love is enough. If it isn’t him, it will be someone else… Don’t try to keep a safe distance so as to see what happens. Don’t wait to be certain before you take a step. What you give, you will receive, although it might sometimes come from the place you least expect.”

“Go further than you planned. Ask for the moon: you will be surprised how often you get it”

“It wasn't necessary to know your own demons in order to find God.”

“No, I'm not mistaken. I know you don't love me. But I'm going to fight for your love. There are some things in life that are worth fighting for to the end. You are worth it.”

“A Warrior knows that the ends do not justify the means. Because there are no ends, there are only means...”

“I must try to enjoy all the graces that God has given me today. Grace cannot be hoarded. There are no banks where it can be deposited to be used when I feel more at peace with myself. If I do not make full use of these blessings, I will lose them forever.God knows that we are all artists of life. One day, he gives us a hammer with which to make sculptures, another day he gives us brushes and paints with which to make a picture, or paper and a pencil to write with. But you cannot make a painting with a hammer, or a sculpture with a paintbrush. Therefore, however difficult it may be, I must accept today's small blessings, even if they seem like curses because I am suffering and it's a beautiful day, the sun is shining, and the children are singing in the street. This is the only way I will manage to leave my pain behind and rebuild my life.”

“In magic - and in life - there is only the present moment, the now. You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. 'Time' doesn't pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we're always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don't want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.”

“This is the present moment. Learn how to gobble it up without fear or guilt.”

“Some people appear to be happy, but they simply don't give the matter much thought. Others make plans: I'm going to have a husband, a home, two children, a house in the country. As long as they're busy doing that, they're like bulls looking for the bullfighter: they react instinctively, they blunder on, with no idea where the target is. They get their car, sometimes they even get a Ferrari, and they think that's the meaning of life, and they never question it. Yet their eyes betray the sadness that even they don't know they carry in their soul. Are you happy?”

“When we turn around & come face to face with our destiny, we discover that words (spoken) are not enough. I know so many people who are brilliant speakers but are quite incapable of practising what they preach. It's one thing to describe a situation & quite another to experience it. I realised a long time ago that a warrior in search of his dream must take his inspiration from what he actually does & not from what he imagines himself doing.”

“Today don't beg, don't ask, just thank God in silence for all the blessings in your life.”

“When I had nothing more to lose, I was given everything. When I ceased to be who I am, I found myself. When I experienced humiliation and yet kept on walking, I understood that I was free to choose my destiny. Perhaps there's something wrong with me, I don't know, perhaps my marriage was a dream I couldn't understand while it lasted. All I know is that even though I can live without her, I would still like to see her again, to say what I never said when we were together: I love you more than I love myself. If I could say that, then I could go on living, at peace with myself, because that love has redeemed me.”

“A boy and a girl were insanely in love with each other,” my mother’s voice was saying. “They decided to become engaged. And that’s when presents are always exchanged.The boy was poor–his only worthwhile possession was a watch he’d inherited from his grandfather. Thinking about his sweetheart’s lovely hair, he decided to sell the watch in order to buy her a silver barrette.The girl had no money herself to buy him a present. She went to the shop of the most successful merchant in the town and sold him her hair. With the money, she bought a gold watchband for her lover.When they met on the day of the engagement party, she gave him the wristband for a watch he had sold, and he gave her the barrette for the hair she no longer had”

“I'm losing the Love i have without having yet won the Love i hope to win.”