For many years I was trying to find answers only through books but then I realized that basically, life is about experience and the thing that you have to do is experience life instead of only reading about it. Reading is very important, but it's not enough. After reading, you have to take some decisions in your hands and move forward and be the human being that you are, and then going and meeting people and work.
Paulo CoelhoWhen we renounce our dreams, we find peace and enjoy a brief period of tranquillity, but the dead dreams begin to rot inside us and to infect the whole atmosphere in which we live. What we hoped to avoid in the Fight -disappointment and defeat- become the sole legacy of our cowardice.
Paulo CoelhoThe Warrior of the Light is a believer. Because he believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen. Because he is sure that his thoughts can change his life, his life begins to change. Because he is certain that he will find love, love appears.
Paulo CoelhoEverything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.
Paulo CoelhoWe can also allow our Soulmate to pass us by,without accepting him or her,or even noticing. Then we will need another incarnation in order to find that Soulmate. And because of our selfishness, we will be condemned to the worst torture humankind ever invented for itself: loneliness.
Paulo CoelhoA schizophrenic is a person who already has a natural tendency to absent himself from this world.
Paulo CoelhoBreak the glass, please, and free us from all these damned rules, from needing to find an explanation for everything, from doing only what others approve of.
Paulo CoelhoLove was above everything else, and there was no hatred in love, only the occasional mistake.
Paulo CoelhoLife will undertake to separate us, and we must each set off in search of our own path, our own destiny or our own way of facing death.
Paulo CoelhoCoincidence is the language of the stars, for something to happen, so many forces have to be put into action.
Paulo CoelhoShe was doing it because she had nothing to lose, because her life was one of constant, day to day frustration.
Paulo CoelhoI only write to understand myself better... I don't try to show how intelligent or how cultivated I am, I just try to share my soul. Sharing is part of life.
Paulo CoelhoShe had just realized there were two things that prevent us from achieving our dreams: believing them to be impossible or seeing those dreams made possible by some sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, when you least expected it. For at that moment, all our fears suddenly surface: the fear of setting off along a road heading who knows where, the fear of a life full of new challenges, the fear of losing forever everything that is familiar.
Paulo CoelhoDoes a soldier go to war in order to kill the enemy? no, he goes in order to die for his country. Does a wife want to show her husband how happy she is? no, she wants him to see how she suffers in order to make him happy Does the husband go to work thinking he will find personal fulfillment there? no, he is giving his sweat and tears for the good of the family And so it goes on: sons give up their dreams to please their parents, parents give up their lives in order to please their children; pain and suffering are used to justify the one thing that should bring only LOVE.
Paulo CoelhoDon't think about what you've left behind. If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return.
Paulo CoelhoA warrior never gives in to fear when he is searching for what he needs. Without love, he is nothing.
Paulo CoelhoCourage. By beginning the journey with that word and continuing with faith in God, you will arrive wherever you need to arrive.
Paulo CoelhoNo one can learn to love by following a manual, and no one can learn to write by following a course. I'm not telling you to seek out other writers but to find people with different skills from yourself, because writing is no different from any other activity done with joy and enthusiasm.
Paulo CoelhoFirst quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.
Paulo CoelhoHell is when we look back during that fraction of a second and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life. Paradise is being able to say at that moment: “I made some mistakes, but I wasn’t a coward. I lived my life and did what I had to do.
Paulo CoelhoWe must have a university degree even if we never get a job in the area of knowledge we were forced to study.
Paulo CoelhoMost experiences provoke a transformation in you. So, when you live something, live it fully because you never know when this is going to happen again and not only that, if it even happens again, it will not have the same impact.
Paulo CoelhoLove transforms, Love heals. But sometimes it lays deadly traps and ends up destroying the person who decided to surrender himself completely.
Paulo CoelhoBecause I don't live in either my past or my future.I'm interested only in the present".
Paulo CoelhoFrom the moment we are born, people tell us that the world is like this and like that, this way, that way. It is natural that - for a certain period of time - we end up believing what we are told. But we must soon push these ideas aside and discover our own way of living reality.
Paulo CoelhoI saw that everything really was written there before me, and that the doors had only been closed before because I hadn't realized that I was the one person in the world with the authority to open them.
Paulo CoelhoHistory will never change because of politics or conquests or theories or wars; that's mere repitition, it's been going on since the beginning of time. History will only change when we are able to use the energy of love, just as we use energy of the wind, the seas, the atom.
Paulo CoelhoWell, let's distinguish religion from spirituality. I am Catholic, so religion for me is a way of having discipline and collective worship with persons who share the same mystery.
Paulo CoelhoOne always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Paulo CoelhoI hate knowing about illness. Whenever I read a medical book, I immediately start to get all the symptoms.
Paulo Coelho