As I walked, I ran my fingers along the spines of hundreds of books. I let myself be imbued with the smell, with the light that filtered through the cracks or from the glass lanterns embedded in the wooden structure, floating among mirrors and shadows.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Categorized in : Book Mirrors Glasses

...until that moment I had not understood that this was a story about lonely people, about absence and loss, and that that was why I had taken refuge in it until it became confused with my own life, like someone who has escaped into the pages of a novel because those whom he needs to love seem nothing more than ghosts inhabiting the mind of a stranger.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

confused lonely taken

Time has taught me not to lose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

taught too-much time

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.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

running inspirational book

Remember me, even if it's only in a corner and secretly. Don't let me go.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

let-me-go corners remember

Maturity is simply the process of discovering that everything you believed in when you were young is false and that all the things you refused to believe in turn out to be true.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

maturity process believe

But in good time you'll see that sometimes what matters isn't what one gives but what one gives up.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

good-times what-matters giving-up

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

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

loneliness heart memories

I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain. One of the great Catalan poets, Joan Maragall, wrote this famous poem in which he called Barcelona the great enchantress, or some kind of sorceress, and in which the city has this dark enticing presence that seduces and lures people. I think Barcelona has a lot of that.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

dark men thinking

Never trust girls who let themselves be touched right away. But even less those who need a priest for approval.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

girl approval needs

One mustn't dream of one's future; one must earn it.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

dream

A good liar knows that the most efficient lie is always a truth that has had a key piece removed from it.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

keys liars lying

It’s a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

hatred dream wind

The moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you've already stopped loving that person forever.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

moments forever thinking

People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

lesson-learned life people

Every 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 Zafon

soul dream book

Waiting is the rust of the soul.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

rust soul waiting

It's up to you how you waste your time and money. I'm staying here to read: life's too short.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

waste up-to-you too-short

We think we understand a song's lyrics but what makes us believe in them, or not, is the music

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

song believe thinking

Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

passports tradition book

Nobody had noticed, nobody had paid attention, but, as usual, the essential part of the matter had been settled before the story had begun, and by then it was too late.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

essentials usual too-late