Quotes from Paulo Coelho

Success is both an addiction and an enslavement...

I think that, with age, people come to realize that death is inevitable. And we need to learn to face it with serenity, wisdom and resignation. Death often frees us from a lot of senseless sufferings.

The boy didn't know what a Personal Legend was. 'It's what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend.

At this moment, many people have stopped living. They do not become angry, nor cry out; they merely wait for time to pass. They did not accept the challenges of life, so life no longer challenges them

If you concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens...Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now.

You have understood what all great painters understand: in order to forget the rules, you must know them and respect them.

This was freedom; to feel what the heart desired with no thought to the opinion of the rest... She was free, for love liberates.

What do you want? You can't want to be happy, because that's too easy and too boring. You can't want only to love, because that's impossible. What do you want? You want to justify your life, to live it as intensely as possible. That is at once a trap and a source of ecstasy. Try to be alert to that danger and experience the joy and the adventure of being that woman who is beyond the image reflected in the mirror.

When a sense of dissatisfaction persists, that means it was placed there by God for one reason only: you need to change everything and move forward.

Why is Love more important than Faith? Because Faith is merely the road that leads us to the Greater Love.

Everything will happen as was written by the Lord, replied the prophet. There are moments when tribulations occur in our lives, and we cannot avoid them. But they are there for some reason. What reason? That is a question we cannot answer before, or even during the trials. Only when we have overcome them do we understand why they were there.

Give yourself freedom to try out new things Don't be so set in your ways that you can't grow.

There are some things in life that are worth fighting for to the end.

Thy will be done, my Lord. Because you know the weakness in the heart of your children, and you assign each of them only the burden they can bear. May you understand 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.

Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.

a man doesn't prove he's a man by getting an erection. He's only a real man if he can pleasure a woman. And if he can pleasure a prostitute, he'll think he's the best lover on the block -Nyah

I wept because I was re-experiencing the enthusiasm of my childhood; I was once again a child, and nothing in the world could cause me harm.

What is I? It's what you are, not what others make of you.

During sex, it is very difficult to deceive the other person because that is when each person shows who they really are.

When we both experienced the love that consumes, we shared in the Absolute. The Absolute shows each of us who we really are; it is an enormous web of cause and effect, where every small gesture made by one person affects the life of someone else. This morning, that slice of the Absolute was still very much alive in my soul. I was seeing not only you but everything there is in the world, unlimited by space or time.

The soil needs the seed and the seed needs the soil. The one only has meaning with the other. It is the same thing with human beings. When male knowledge joins with female transformation, then the great magical union is created, and its name is wisdom. Wisdom means both to know and to transform.

Our body remains alive, yet sooner or later our soul will receive a mortal blow. The perfect crime--for we don't know who murdered our joy, what their motives were, or where the guilty parties are to be found.

Dreams nourish the soul just as food nourishes the body. The pleasure of the search and of adventure feeds our dreams.

Life attracts life.