Normal people bring children into the world; we novelists bring books. We are condemned to put our whole lives into them, even though they hardly ever thank us for it. We are condemned to die in their pages and sometimes even to let our books be the ones who, in the end, will take our lives.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonOnce, in my father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or laterโno matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forgetโwe will return.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonA modern-day Dickens with a popular voice and a genius for storytelling in any genre, Stephen King has written many wonderful books.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonThere are times and places where not to be anyone is more honourable than to be someone.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonIt is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for human beings. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonHe was a very private person, and sometimes it seemed to me that he was no longer interested in the world or in other people... I got the feeling that Juliรกn was living in the past, locked in his memories. Juliรกn lived within himself, for his books and inside them - a comfortable prison of his own design." "You say this as if you envied him." "There are worse prisons than words.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon