The Martyr finds her way to self-knowledge through pain, suffering, and surrender.

If we are desperate, though , if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes direction.

My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer, the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky. Tell your heart that the fear of suffering s worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with Eternity.

He knows that he must act, but he must allow room for the Universe to act too.

Meet your obligations. But obligations never prevented anyone from following their dreams. Remember that you are a manifestation of the absolute, and do only those things in your life that are worth the effort. Only those who do that will understand the great transformations that are yet to be seen.

Everything which is done in the present, affects the future by consequence, and the past by redemption.

As he looked up at the clouds or down at the precipice, he realized that this woman was the most important thing in his life; that she was the explanation, the sole reason for the existence of those rocks, that sky, that winter. If she were not there with him, it wouldn't matter if all the angels of heaven came flying down to comfort him--Paradise would make no sense.