“and better still to be alone with one's books. They tell their incredible stories at the time when you want to hear them. But when you're talking to people, they say some things that are so strange that you don't know how to continue the conversation.”
“People say strange things, the boy thought. Sometimes it's better to be with thesheep, who don't say anything. And better still to be alone with one's books.They tell their incredible stories at the time when you want to hear them. Butwhen you're talking to people, they say some things that are so strange thatyou don't know how to continue the conversation.”
“The most important thing in all human relationships is conversation, but people don’t talk anymore, they don’t sit down to talk and listen. They go to the theater, the cinema, watch television, listen to the radio, read books, but they almost never talk. If we want to change the world, we have to go back to a time when warriors would gather around a fire and tell stories.”
“Whenever she sat still, just looking at something, she got the feeling that she was wasting precious time when she should be doing things to meet people. She could be spending her time so much better, because there was still so much to learn.”
“Hmm..." said the old man, looking at all sides of the book, as if it were some strange object. "This is an important book, but it's really irritating."The boy was shocked. The old man knew how to read, and had already read the book. And if the book was irritating, as the old man had said, the boy still had time to change it for another."It's a book that says the same thing almost all the other books in the world say," continued the old man. "It describes people's inability to choose their own Personal Legends. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world's greatest lie.""What's the world's greatest lie?" the boy asked, completely surprised."It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.”
“There were two things that prevent us from achieving our dreams: believing them to be impossible or seeing those dreams made possible by some sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, when you least expected it. [...]People want to change everything and, at the same time, want it all to remain the same”
“Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.”