One loves truly only once in a lifetime, Julian, even if one isn’t aware of it. Carlos Ruiz Zafon More Quotes by Carlos Ruiz Zafon More Quotes From Carlos Ruiz Zafon As it unfolded, the structure of the story began to remind me of one of those Russian dolls that contain innumerable ever-smaller dolls within. Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories, as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors, its identity fragmented into endless reflections. Carlos Ruiz Zafon mirrors identity reflection We exist as long as somebody remembers us. Carlos Ruiz Zafon remember long Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. Carlos Ruiz Zafon reading running book Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you. Carlos Ruiz Zafon mirrors truth book There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds. Carlos Ruiz Zafon dormant language mind A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept. Carlos Ruiz Zafon keeping-secrets kept-secrets people She was seventeen, her entire life shining on her lips. Carlos Ruiz Zafon seventeen lips shining When everyone is determined to present someone as a monster, there are two possibilities: either he’s a saint or they themselves are not telling the whole story. Carlos Ruiz Zafon saint monsters two Coincidences are the scars of fate. Carlos Ruiz Zafon scar fate coincidence Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not the merits of who receives them. Carlos Ruiz Zafon giving-back giving-not-receiving merit You young people never say anything. And us old folks don't know how to stop talking. Carlos Ruiz Zafon say-anything talking people Well, this is a story about books." About books?" About accursed books, about a man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of anovel 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." You talk like the jacket blurb of a Victorian novel, Daniel." That's probably because I work in a bookshop and I've seen too many. But this is a true story. Carlos Ruiz Zafon betrayal dream book In fact I don't think of literature, or music, or any art form as having a nationality. Where you're born is simply an accident of fate. I don't see why I shouldn't be more interested in say, Dickens, than in an author from Barcelona simply because I wasn't born in the UK. I do not have an ethno-centric view of things, much less of literature. Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human. Carlos Ruiz Zafon fate book art A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise. Carlos Ruiz Zafon would-be stories writing 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 hard money inspirational I stepped into the bookshop and breathed in that perfume of paper and magic that strangely no one had ever thought of bottling. Carlos Ruiz Zafon perfume magic paper ... , 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 knowing cities listening -Do you think it's dirty money? -All money is dirty. If it were clean nobody would want it. Carlos Ruiz Zafon want dirty thinking Television is the Antichrist, and I can assure you after only three or four generations, people will no longer even know how to fart on their own and humans will return to medieval savagery and to the general state of imbecility that slugs overcame back in the Pleistocene era. Our world will not die as a result of the bomb...it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything and a lousy joke at that. Carlos Ruiz Zafon laughter our-world people In this world the only opinion that holds court is prejudice. Carlos Ruiz Zafon prejudice opinion world
