quote · Legacy record
Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now. “I’m afraid of committing myself,” she thought to herself. She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none. Even in that most important area of her life, love, she had failed to commit herself. After her first romantic disappointment, she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pan, loss, and separation. These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes not to see the bad things in life.
Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now. “I’m afraid of committing myself,” she thought to herself. She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none. Even in that most important area of her life, love, she had failed to commit herself. After her first romantic disappointment, she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pan, loss, and separation. These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes not to see the bad things in life.
Approximate author period: c. 1947 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Paulo Coelho
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1947 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1947; activity date not established; Wikidata Q12881, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12881 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 3469; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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