The collection / 183 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1992 AD

We seem to live in a world where forgetting and oblivion are an industry in themselves and very, very few people are remotely interested or aware of their own recent history, much less their neighbors'. I tend to think we are what we remember, what we know. The less we remember, the less we know about ourselves, the less we are. (Interview with Three Monkeys Online, October 2008)

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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02c. 1992 AD

future could be read much more clearly in the streets, factories, and barracks than in the morning press.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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03c. 1992 AD

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.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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04c. 1992 AD

Making money isn't hard in itself,' he complained. 'What's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one's life to.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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05c. 1992 AD

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.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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06c. 1992 AD

Making money isn't hard in itself... What's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one's life to.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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07c. 1992 AD

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

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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08c. 1992 AD

I imagine some people, like some toys, are born defective - which I suppose makes us all broken toys, don't you think?

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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09c. 1992 AD

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.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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10c. 1992 AD

If you ever have a daughter—a blessing I wouldn't wish on anyone, because it's Murphy's Law that sooner or later she will break your heart—anyhow, as I was saying, if you ever have a daughter, you'll begin, without realizing it, to divide men into two camps: those you suspect are sleeping with her and those you don't. Whoever says that's not true is lying through his teeth.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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11c. 1992 AD

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...

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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12c. 1992 AD

It's possible, and I stress possible, that such a moment may never come: you may not fall in love, you may not be able to or you may not wish to give your whole life to anyone, and, like me, you may turn forty-five one day and realize that you're no longer young and you have never found a choir of cupids with lyres or a bed of white roses leading to the altar. The only revenge left for you then will be to steal from life the pleasure of firm and passionate flesh - a pleasure that evaporates faster than good intentions and is the nearest thing to heaven you will find in this stinking world where everything decays, beginning with beauty and ending with memory.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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13c. 1992 AD

Right then, in a nutshell: this one hasn't a single bone of obedient-little-wife material in her heavenly body.''Hasn't she? Then what kind of bone does your expertise detect?'Fermin came closer, adopting a confidential tone. 'The passionate kind,' he said, raising his eyebrows with an air of mystery. 'And you can be sure I mean that as a compliment.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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14c. 1992 AD

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.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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15c. 1992 AD

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

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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16c. 1992 AD

Now, back in the reality that always lies in wait among the shadows of the Ensanche quarter, the enchantment was lifting, and all I had was painful desire and an indescribable restlessness.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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17c. 1992 AD

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

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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18c. 1992 AD

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

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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19c. 1992 AD

If you don't trust a novelist, who are you going to trust?

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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20c. 1992 AD

Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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21c. 1992 AD

Destiny doesn't do home visits... you have to go for it yourself.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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22c. 1992 AD

Destiny is usually around the corner. Like a thief, like a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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23c. 1992 AD

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.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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24c. 1992 AD

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.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón / quote

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