Quotes from Paulo Coelho

You don't seem mad at all,' she said. But I am, although I'm undergoing a cure, because my problem is that I lack a particular chemical. However, while I hope that the chemical gets rid of my chronic depression, I want to continue being mad, living life the way I dream it, and not the way other people want it to be. Do you know what exists out there, beyond the walls of Villete?

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.

Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself.

The future belongs to God, and it is only he who reveals it, under extraordinary circumstances. How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live ach day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.

She wasn't a victim of fate, she was running her own risks, pushing beyond her own limits, experiencing things which, one day, in the silence of her heart, in the tedium of old age, she would remember almost with nostalgia - however absurd that might seem.

Although I have been through all that I have, I do not regret the many hardships I met, because it was they who brought me to the place I wished to reach.

The taste of things recovered is the sweetest honey we will ever know.

Esther, however, was the only woman who understood one very simple thing: in order to be able to find her, I first had to find myself.

Insanity is the inability to communicate your ideas. It's as if you were in a foreign country, able to see and understand everything that's going on around you but incapable of explaining what you need to know or of being helped, because you don't understand the language they speak there. We've all felt that. And all of us, one way or another, are insane.

We don't always choose the best solution but we carry on regardless, trying to remain upright and decent in order to do honor not to the walls or the doors or the windows but to the empty space inside, the space where we worship and venerate what is dearest and most important to us.

Because we managed to keep our heart open, despite the pain. Because we realized that the person who left us did not take the sun with them or leave darkness in their place.

The boy reached through to the Soul of the World, and saw that it was part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles.

No heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.

Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severely tested. The boy remembered an old proverb from his country. It said that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.

Have pity on those who are fearful of taking up a pen, or a paintbrush, or an instrument, or a tool because they are afraid that someone has already done so better than they could…

we're allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroy us

You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't a true love.. the love that speaks the language of the world.

Avoid those who seek friends in order to maintain a certain social status or to open doors they would not otherwise be able to approach.

Every second of the search is an encounter with God. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous...I've discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.

When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left!

We always have the necessary resources to face the storms that life throws at us, but most of the time,those resources are locked up in the depths of our heart and we waste an enormous amount of time trying to find them.By the time we've found them,we already been defeated by adversity.

The only trap I must beware not to fall into, is to think that each day is the same as the next. In fact, each morning brings with it a hidden miracle, and we must pay attention to this miracle.

I think classical ballet dancers dance on pointe because they're simultaneously touching the earth and reaching up to the skies

LIVE. If you live, god will live with you. If you refuse to run his risks, he'll retreat to that distant heaven and be merely a subject for philosophical speculation.