Carlos Ruiz Zafón Quotes

Biography

Type: Novelist

Born: 25 September 1964

Died:

Carlos Ruiz Zafón is the author of six novels, including the international phenomenon "The Shadow of the Wind", and "The Angel’s Game". His work has been published in more than forty different languages, and honoured with numerous international awards. He divides his time between Barcelona, Spain, and Los Angeles, California.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón Quotes

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

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

There are few reasons for telling the truth, but for lying the number is infinite.. Carlos
There are few reasons for telling the truth, but for lying the number is infinite.

Man...heats up like a lightbulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand...heats up like an iron. Slowly, over a low heat, like tasty stew. But then, once she has heated up, there's no stopping her.

that as long as we are being remembered, we remain alive.. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
that as long as we are being remembered, we remain alive.

Few things are more deceptive than memories.. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Few things are more deceptive than memories.

A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.

If you really want to possess a woman, you must think like her, and the first thing to do is win over her soul. The rest, that sweet, soft wrapping that steals away your senses and your virtue, is a bonus.

Every work of art is aggressive, Isabella. And every artist's life is a small war or a large one, beginning with oneself and one's limitations. To achieve anything you must first have ambition and then talent, knowledge, and finally the opportunity.

I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day.

The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, whether through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.

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.

He lost himself in the words and images conjured in his mind and for a while forgot ... He found himself flying among stars and planets ...

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.

One loves truly only once in a lifetime, Julian, even if one isn’t aware of it..
One loves truly only once in a lifetime, Julian, even if one isn’t aware of it.

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

Most of us have the good or bad fortune of seeing our lives fall apart so
Most of us have the good or bad fortune of seeing our lives fall apart so slowly we barely notice.

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

We all give up great expectations along the way.. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
We all give up great expectations along the way.

I'm not talking to anyone, I'm delivering a monologue. It's the inebriated man's prerogative.

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.

One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep.

We are willing to believe anything other than the truth.. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
We are willing to believe anything other than the truth.

Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. A moran or a lout, howeverm doesn't stop to think or reason.

Cada vez que un libro cambia de manos, cada vez que alguien desliza la mirada por sus páginas, su espíritu crece y se hace fuerte. (Sempere)

Nothing important is learned; it is simply remembered.. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Nothing important is learned; it is simply remembered.

Don't be bashful; we're among gentlemen. It's a known fact that we men are the missing link between the pirate and the pig.

Making money isn't hard in itself,what's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting your life to

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

I can't die yet, doctor. Not yet. I have things to do. Afterwords I'll have a
I can't die yet, doctor. Not yet. I have things to do. Afterwords I'll have a whole lifetime in which to die.

If there is a god, or hundreds of them, I hope they will forgive me for the harm I may have inflicted on you by telling you exactly what happened.

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

Miłość jest jak wędlina: jest salami i jest mortadela.. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Miłość jest jak wędlina: jest salami i jest mortadela.

Senor Sempere believed that God lives, to a smaller or greater extent, in books, and that is why he devoted his life to sharing them, to protecting them, and to making sure their pages, like our memories and our desires, are never lost.

Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.

In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.

I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for
I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.

Some like to believe it's the book that chooses the person.. Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Some like to believe it's the book that chooses the person.

After a while it occurred to me that between the covers of each of those books lay a boundless universe waiting to be discovered while beyond those walls, in the outside world, people allowed life to pass by in afternoons of football and radio soaps, content to do little more than gaze at their navels.

As it unfolded, the structure of the story began to remind me of one of those Russian dolls that contain innumerable ever-smaller dolls within. 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.

There are worse prisons than words.

As I walked, I ran my fingers along the spines of hundreds of books. I let myself be imbued with the smell, with the light that filtered through the cracks or from the glass lanterns embedded in the wooden structure, floating among mirrors and shadows.

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

To Senor Sempere, the best friend a book could ever have: you opened the doors to the world for me and showed me how to go through them.

Max had once read in one of his father's books that some childhood images become engraved in the mind like photographs, like scenes you can return to again and again and will always remember, no matter how much time goes by.

Ignatius B. Samson, welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

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.

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

Katrai grāmatai ir dvēsele - tā cilvēka dvēsele, kurš grāmatu sarakstījis, un to cilvēku dvēseles, kuri grāmatu lasījuši un kopā ar to sapņojuši.

Aryami Bose's home had been closed up for years, inhabited only by books and paintings, but the spectre of thousands of memories imprisoned between its walls still permeated the house.

Martin, at my age, eroticism is reduced to enjoying caramel custard and looking at widows' necks.' - Senor Sempere.

Time goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you, like trains that don’t stop at your station.

They had parted as boys, and now life presented one of them with a fugitive and the other with a dying man. Both wondered whether this was due to the cards they'd been dealt or to the way they had played them.

Ustedes, las mujeres, escuchan más al corazón y menos a la tontería - concluyó el sombrerero con tristeza - . Por eso viven más.

Lo mejor de las mujeres es descubrirlas.

Se enfrenta usted al enigma de la naturaleza, Daniel. La fémina, babel y laberinto. Si la deja usted pensar, está perdido. Recuerde: corazón caliente, mente fría. El código del seductor.

Jorge siempre viviría a la sombra de su privilegio, entre algodones y fracasos. Penélope, la preciosa Penélope, era mujer y por tanto tesoro, no tesorero. Julián, que tenía alma de poeta, y por tanto de asesino, reunía las cualidades.

Don't be afraid of being scared. To be afraid is a sign of common sense. Only complete idiots are not afraid of anything.

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

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.

He let the hours go by lost in the magic of words, shedding his skin and his name, feeling like another person. He allowed himself to be carried away by the dreams of shadowy characters, the only refuge left for him.

I started off for home, where I planned to recruit a good book and hide away from the world.

the day women are allowed to learn to read and write the world will become ungovernable.

You don't know what thirst is until you drink for the first time.

Uno no sabe lo que es la vida hasta que desnuda por primera vez a una mujer. Botón a botón, como si pelase usted un boniato bien calentito en una noche de invierno.

- Hazme lo que quieras - susurró. Tenía diecisiete años y la vida en los labios.

I looked at the group of human remains that languished in the corner and smiled at them. It occurred to me that their very presence was testimony to the moral emptiness of the universe and the mechanical brutality with which it destroys the parts it no longer needs.

Julian spoke with the clear, unequivocal lucidity of madmen who have escaped the hypocrisy of having to abide by a reality that makes no sense.

It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality.

- You don't look well, he pronounced.
- Indigestion, I replied.
- From what?
- Reality.
- Join the queue.

You don't look well," he pronounced.
"Indigestion," I replied.
"From what?"
"Reality."
"Join the queue.

Why is it that all wars are won by bankers?

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

History is biology's dumping ground

The night I met him [he] told me that, for some reason, life usually grants us what we are not looking for. He was given wealth, fame, and power, yet his soul yearned only for spiritual peace so that he could silence the shadows in his heart...

I've learnt that solitude is sometimes a path that leads to peace

Her tiny and organized handwriting reminded me of the tidiness of her desk, as if she'd wanted to find in words the peace and safety that life hadn't wanted to grant her.

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.

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.

He was rather clumsy and shy and looked as if he'd spent the last ten years of his life locked up in a library - hardly the kind of man any girl your age dreams of ...

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

Me habló de sus dudas y de sus miedos, de cómo toda una vida le había enseñado que cuanto tenía por cierto era una simple ilusión y que había demasiadas lecciones que no valía la pena aprender.

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.

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.

[He] was a brilliant man. People tend to become wary of individuals like him because their brilliance reminds them of their own mediocrity. Envy is a blind man who wants to pull out your eyes.

Las estadísticas lo demuestran: más gente muere en la cama que en la trinchera.

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.

Friends?"
"Till death us do part.

Bea dice que el arte de leer se está muriendo muy lentamente, que es un ritual íntimo, que un libro es un espejo y que sólo podemos encontrar en él lo que ya llevamos dentro, que al leer ponemos la mente y el alma, y que esos son bienes cada día más escasos.

-Do you think it's dirty money?
-All money is dirty. If it were clean nobody would want it.

In my schoolboy reveries, we were always two fugitives riding on the spine of a book, eager to escape into worlds of fiction and secondhand dreams.

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

No valía la pena perder el tiempo en intentar cambiar el mundo; bastaba con evitar que el mundo lo cambiase a uno.

Lo difícil no es ganar dinero sin más,-se lamentaba-. Lo difícil es ganarlo haciendo algo a lo que valga la pena dedicarle la vida.

- Lo difícil no es ganar dinero sin más - se lamentaba - . Lo difícil es ganarlo haciendo algo a lo que valga la pena dedicarle la vida.

En contra de lo que usted cree a pies juntillas, el universo no gira en torno a las apetencias de su entrepierna. Otros factores influyen en el devenir de la humanidad.

Ya sé que el mundo cambia, pero nunca en lo esencial.

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