Carlos Ruiz Zafon Quotes & Sayings

Well this story is about books.
About books?
About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind (p.178) — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I prefer you like this, when you're in a foul mood, because you tell the truth. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Let's shake hands and be friends, but please, I beg you, stop farting like that, becuase I'm beinning to hallucinate and in my dreams I see Comrade Josepg Stalin doing the charleston. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Envy is the religion of the mediocre. It comforts them, it soothes their worries, and finally it rots their souls, allowing them to justify their meanness and their greed until they believe these to be virtues. Such people are convinced that the doors of heaven will be opened only to poor wretches like themselves who go through life without leaving any trace but their threadbare attempts to belittle others and to exclude - and destroy if possible - those who, by the simple fact of their existence, show up their own poorness of spirit, mind, and guts. Blessed be the one at whom the fools bark, because his soul will never belong to them. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The business of courtship is like a tango: absurd and pure embellishment. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I've always ignored the labels people put on things. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Halfway through the afternoon the sun appeared from behind the blanket of clouds left by the storm. The shining streets were transformed into mirrors, on which pedestrians walked, reflecting the amber of the sky. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

To truly hate is an act one learns with time — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The TV set. Some predicted that this peculiar contraption was going to change our lives forever and turn us all into creatures of the future, like the Americans — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The administrative and hierarchic aspects seem to be crucial in the evolution of belief systems. The truth is first revealed to all men, but very quickly individuals appear claiming sole authority and a duty to interpret, administer and, if need be, alter this truth in the name of the common good. To this end they establish a powerful and potentially repressive organisation. This phenomenon, which biology shows us is common to any social group, soon transforms the doctrine into a means of achieving control and political power. Divisions, wars and break-ups become inevitable. Sooner or later, the word becomes flesh and the flesh bleeds. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Don't make the mistake of confusing the word of God with the missal industry that lives off it. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I am a curious creature and put my finger in as many cakes as I can: history, film, technology, etc. I'm also a freak for urban history, particularly Barcelona, Paris and New York. I know more weird stuff about 19th-century Manhattan than is probably healthy. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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,'" he argued. "It's pure biology. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Thank goodness it's you, not that madman who came last time, the one with the bullfighter's name. He seemed drunk to me, or else eminently certifiable. He had the nerve to ask me whether I knew the etymology of the word 'prick,' in a sarcastic tone that was quite out of place. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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 Zafon

... deep down nobody is bad, only frightened. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

My father sighed, hiding behind the sad smile that
followed him like a shadow all through his life. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

You can come share a tasty meal of bread, raisins, and fresh cheese. With that, and The Count of Monte Cristo, anyone can live to a hundred. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Six years later my mother's absence remained in the air around us, a deafening silence that I had not learned to stifle with words. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Everything in life in nonsense. it's just a question of persepctive — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

worst blows." Clara spoke these words — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Don Ricardo wanted a successor worthy of himself. Jorge would always be cocooned in the privileges of his class, hiding from his mediocrity in creature comforts. Penelope, the beautiful Penelope, was a woman, and therefore a treasure, not a treasurer. Julian, who had the soul of a poet, and therefore the soul of a murderer, fulfilled all the requirements. It was only a question of time. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Cause me physical pain. I was burning inside. Nothing and nobody could ease the pain. I became a gray figure in the corridors. My shadow merged with the walls. Days fell off the calendar like dead leaves. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

It was a magnificent day; the skies were electric blue, and a crystal breeze carried the cool scent of autumn and the sea. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Theory is the practice of the impotent. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Mr. Aguilar belonged to that race of privileged minds who are always right. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A good friend once told me that the problems are like cockroaches. If drawn to light, they'll get scared. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Tell me Ignatius B., who has broken your heart and left you so angry? — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Julian once wrote that coincidences are the scars of fate. There are no coincidences, Daniel. We are puppets of our subconscious desires. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

All business opportunities stem from someone else's inability to resolve a simple and inevitable problem. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Life had taught her that we all require big and small lies in order to survive, just as much as we need air. She used to say that if during one single day, from dawn to dusk, we could see the naked reality of the world, and of ourselves, we would either take our own lives or lose our minds. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that." Professor — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

But Clara's father believed that nations never see themselves clearly in the mirror, much less when war preys on their minds. He had a good understanding of history and knew that the future could be read much more clearly in the streets, factories, and barracks than in the morning press. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other prupose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I could tell you it's the heart, but what is really killing him is loneliness. Memories are worse than bullets. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Fewer things leave a deeper mark on the reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Mention the gothic, and many readers will probably picture gloomy castles and an assortment of sinister Victoriana. However, the truth is that the gothic genre has continued to flourish and evolve since the days of Bram Stoker, producing some of its most interesting and accomplished examples in the 20th century - in literature, film and beyond. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Women have an infallible instinct for knowing when a man has fallen madly in love with them, especially when the male in question is both a complete dunce and a minor. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Resentment slowly poisoned my blood and I laughed at myself and my absurd hopes. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Those times, against all expectations, were turning out to be good times. Then he felt afraid, because he knew they couldn't last long and those stolen drops of happiness and peace would evaporate. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The dead never go to their own funeral. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A piece of literature can be many things but first of all it must capture its audience. You need to seduce people, entice them into a world of beauty and horror, light and shadow, of passion, of romance, of mystery. That's the magic of it. Beyond that, of course, you can open a dialogue about the ideas which interest you, but first of all you absolutely must get inside people's minds. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A good friend once told me that problems are like cockroaches. If you bring them out into the light, they get scared and leave. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

He loved her with all his soul, but in his own way, which was the correct way. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The gaslight radiating from this opening gave an ocher tone to the miasma that emanated from within. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

People who have no life always have to stick their nose in the life of others. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A man must have vices, expensive ones if possible. Otherwise when he reaches old age he will have nothing to be redeemed from. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

After a while it occurred to me that between the covers of each of those books lay a boundless universe waiting to be discovered while beyond those walls, in the outside world, people allowed life to pass by in afternoons of football and radio soaps, content to do little more than gaze at their navels. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Keep your dreams, you will never know when you need them — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

He didn't know whether we created God in our own image or whether God created us without quite 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. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

An intellectual is usually someone who isn't exactly distinguished by his intellect," Corelli asserted. "he claims that label to compensate for his inadequacies. It's as old as that saying : "Tell me what you boast of and I'll tell you what you lack. Our daily bread. The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant, and the feeble-minded as intellectual. Once again, it's all the work of nature. Far from being the sylph to whom poets sing, nature is a cruel, voracious mother who needs to feed on the creatures she gives birth to in order to stay alive. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

What I'm searching for is the opposite of an intellectual, in other words, someone intelligent. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

, listening to the storm outside as it left the city, knowing that I was going to lose her but also knowing that, for a few minutes, we had belonged to one another, and to nobody else. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

You talk as if Bea were a trophy.'
'No, as if she were a blessing,' Fermin corrected. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I knew when I was writing The Angel's Game that a lot of people would be upset that I didn't write Shadow Of The Wind 2. That's okay, that's part of the game. You do what you have to do. If they like it, great. If they don't, too bad. What are you going to do? — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Go to hell, I whispered. The night darker than ever, leaned in against the window panes. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Truth is, only the useless get to the top in this country. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I 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 Zafon

Is the sort that breaks a man's heart just walking ... — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

When he spoke those words, it seemed to Julian that the hatter had put off falling in love with his wife until he had already lost her. 'You only love truly once in a lifetime, Julian, even if you aren't always aware of it. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I can't die yet, doctor. Not yet. I have things to do. Afterwords I'll have a whole lifetime in which to die. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I'm not sure whether to thank you or report you to the police, he said at last. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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 Zafon

Hope is cruel and has no consequence — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Sometimes feeling and thinking are one and the same. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

You don't know what thirst is until you drink for the first time — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Funny people, the Swiss," he said. "While the rest of us hide our sins, they stuff theirs with liqueur, wrap them in silver paper, add a ribbon, and sell them at the price of gold. The prefect has just sent me a huge box of chocolates from Zurich, — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Every labyrinth has its minotaur — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Poetry is written with tears, fiction with blood, and history with invisible ink. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

In the shop we buy & sell them, but in truth books have no owner. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

( ... )where tourists and people from the city came in search of sand, sun and expensive forms of boredome. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I was incapable of writing or feeling anything except the terror of her absence, of knowing she was lost, wrenched away. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Friends?"
"Till death us do part. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I turned to discover the faint smile of the bookseller's
niece. Her voice was pure crystal, transparent and so fragile I feared that her words would break if I interrupted them. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The greatest multiplex in the universe is inside your mind, and the only ticket you need is a good, well-written novel. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Men are like chestnuts they sell in the street: they're all hot and they all smell good when you buy them, but when you take them out of the paper cone you realise that most of them are rotten inside. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

And may you live to see it,' said Fermin, as he signalled to the siren from Calle Escudillers to start displaying her wares.
I saw her caress the old man with infinite delicacy,
kissing the tears that fell down his cheeks. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The female heart is a labyrinth of subtleties, too challenging for the uncouth mind of the male racketeer. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

We are willing to believe anything other than the truth. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Look, Daniel, at my age either you begin to see things for what they are or you're pretty much done for. Only three or four things are worth living for; the rest is manure — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I would have preferred someone else to have been in charge of rescuing this story, but once again life has taught me that my role is to be a witness, not the leading actor. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

1My father says a hunch is your brain's way of taking a short cut to the truth,' replied Max.
'He's a wise man, your father. What else does he say?'

'That the more you try to hide from the truth, the quicker it finds you. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Don't you feel like a little glass of rum? It's Cuban, like all the good stuff that kills you. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

May I offer you something? A small glass of cyanide? — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Never underestimate a writer's vanity, especially that of a mediocre writer. (The Angel's Game) — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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

There are times and places where not to be anyone is more honourable than to be someone. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Love is a lot like pork: there's loin steak and there's bologna. Each has its own place and function. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

God gives us life, but the world's landlord is the devil ... — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

My father pretended to be reading his letters. He was a dreadful actor. 'Since when have you liked Wagner? — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I realised that I had always been writing things that other people wanted me to write and not what I really wanted to write, so I felt like I was losing my way. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Time curses all, I thought, except the truth. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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 Zafon

Now he understood. He had dreamed about her countless times, on that same staircase, with that same blue dress and that same movement of her ash-grey eyes, without knowing who she was or why she smiled at him. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

My childhood was surrounded by books and writing. From a very early age I was fascinated by storytelling, by the printed word, by language, by ideas. So I would seek them out. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon