01c. 1992 ADIgnatius B. Samson, welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
02c. 1992 ADI was no longer able to hear the music that issues from a decent piece of prose.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
03c. 1992 ADNever before had I felt trapped, so seduced and caught up in a story,' Clara explained, 'the way I did with that book. Until then, reading was just a duty, a sort of fine one had to pay teachers and tutors without quite knowing why. 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. This is a world of shadows, Daniel, and magic is a rare asset. That book taught me that by reading, I could live more intensely. It could give me back the sight I had lost. For that reason alone, a book that didn't matter to anyone, changed my life.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
04c. 1992 ADAryami 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.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
05c. 1992 AD... Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memoryCarlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
06c. 1992 ADDon't be afraid of being scared. To be afraid is a sign of common sense. Only complete idiots are not afraid of anything.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
07c. 1992 ADI 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.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
08c. 1992 ADDriven 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.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
09c. 1992 ADNothing feeds forgetfulness better than war.... We all keep quiet and they try to convince us that what we've seen, what we've done, what we've learned about ourselves and about others, is an illusion, a passing nightmare. Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
10c. 1992 ADnations never see themselves clearly in the mirror, much less when war preys on their mindsCarlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
11c. 1992 ADEvery book has a soul, the soul of the person who wrote it and the soul of those who read it and dream about it.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
12c. 1992 ADHe 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 ...Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
14c. 1992 ADThe day I die, all that was once mine will be yours, Julián, he would say. Except my dreams.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
15c. 1992 ADMartin, at my age, eroticism is reduced to enjoying caramel custard and looking at widows' necks.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
16c. 1992 ADNever trust girls who let themselves be touched right away. But even less those who need a priest for approval.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
17c. 1992 ADNobody knows much about women, not even Freud, not even women themselves. But it's like electricity: you don't need to know how it works to get a shock on the fingers.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
18c. 1992 ADI discovered that seventeen-year-old girls have such huge verbal energy that their brain drives them to expend it every twenty seconds. On the third day I decided I had to find her a boyfriend -- if possible, a deaf one.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
20c. 1992 ADThis is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. 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. This place was already ancient when my father brought me here for the first time, many years ago. Perhaps as old as the city itself. Nobody knows for certain how long it has existed, or who created it. I will tell you what my father told me, though. When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands. In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you here has been somebody's best friend. Now they only have us, Daniel. Do you think you'll be able to keepsuch a secret?' My gaze was lost in the immensity of the place and itssorcery of light. I nodded, and my father smiled.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
21c. 1992 ADParis is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
22c. 1992 ADFew things leave a deeper mark on the reader, than the first book that finds its way to his heart.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
23c. 1992 ADI 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.Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
24c. 1992 ADHe truly was a man of faith. He believed in his friends, in the truth of things and in something to which he didn’t dare put a name or a face because he said as priests that was our job. Senor Sempere believed we are all a part of something, and that when we leave this world our memories and our desires are not lost, but go on to become the memories and desires of those who take our place. He didn’t know whether we created God in our own image or whether God created us without knowing what he was doing. He believed that God, or whatever brought us here, lives in each of our deeds, in each of our words, and manifests himself in all those things that show us to be more than mere figures of clay. 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. He believed, and he made me believe it too, that as long as there is one person left in the world who is capable of reading them and experiencing them, a small piece of God, or of life, will remain” (p. 348).Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote ↗
