Paulo Coelho Quotes

1. “You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.”

2. “Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.”

3. “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

4. “I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.”

5. “When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It's very simple.”

6. “Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.”

7. “I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.”

8. “Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.”

9. “You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.”

10. “One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”

11. “Elegance is usually confused with superficiality, fashion, lack of depth. This is a serious mistake: human beings need to have elegance in their actions and in their posture because this word is synonymous with good taste, amiability, equilibrium and harmony.”

12. “Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.”

13. “Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.”

14. “No, I never saw an angel, but it is irrelevant whether I saw one or not. I feel their presence around me.”

15. “The more violent the storm, the quicker it passes.”

16. “The more in harmony with yourself you are, the more joyful you are and the more faithful you are. Faith is not to disconnect you from reality - it connects you to reality.”

17. “Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”

18. “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.”

19. “Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.”

20. “You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.”

21. “Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it's how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.”

22. “When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.”

23. “We have lost contact with reality, the simplicity of life.”

24. “Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”

25. “We have to stop and be humble enough to understand that there is something called mystery.”

26. “Writing means sharing. It's part of the human condition to want to share things - thoughts, ideas, opinions.”

27. “The good old days, when each idea had an owner, are gone forever.”

28. “Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere.”

29. “I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.”

30. “Elegance is achieved when all that is superfluous has been discarded and the human being discovers simplicity and concentration: the simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be.”

31. “The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions.”

32. “Everything is possible, from angels to demons to economists and politicians.”

33. “The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.”

34. “You should treat a muse like a fairy.”

35. “All women have a perception much more developed than men. So all women somehow, being repressed for so many millennia, they ended up by developing this sixth sense and contemplation and love. And this is something that we have a hard time to accept as part of our society.”

36. “What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I'm someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.”

37. “Beauty is the greatest seducer of man.”

38. “Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.”

39. “No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone's eyes.”

40. “If you start by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work towards getting it.”

41. “Every day I try to be in communication with the universe in an unconscious way.”

42. “There is an afterlife. I am convinced of this.”

43. “What interests me in life is curiosity, challenges, the good fight with its victories and defeats.”

44. “Of course, to have money is just great because you can do what you think is important to you. I always was a rich person because money's not related to happiness.”

45. “Happiness is just another of the tricks that our genetic system plays on us to carry out its only role, which is the survival of the species.”

46. “I am a Catholic because I choose to be a Catholic. And then I go to the Mass because I choose. It is out of my free will.”

47. “Writers are lampposts and critics are dogs. Ask lampposts what they think about dogs. Does the dog hurt the lamppost?”

48. “I always was a rich person because money's not related to happiness.”

49. “Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: we must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility.”

50. “I'm not a person that socializes very well.”

51. “About the idea of a clash between cultures, between civilisations, I don't believe in it. It's something some political leaders tried to use, and that the media tried and are still trying to sell us, in order to simplify the world and their work.”

52. “People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they're much more open.”

53. “I am 100 per cent Virgo, stubborn, over-organised, slightly abstracted from the rest of the world.”

54. “The major religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, they deny somehow that God has a feminine face. However, if you go to the holy texts, you see there is this feminine presence.”

55. “I have been practicing archery for a long time; a bow and arrow helps me to unwind.”

56. “I'm not saying that love always takes you to heaven. Your life can become a nightmare. But that said, it is worth taking the risk.”

57. “Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.”

58. “You're always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.”

59. “I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset - tears are words waiting to be written.”

60. “I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I'd have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.”

61. “Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.”

62. “We want to answer this classical question, who am I? So I think that most of our works are for art, or whatever we do, including science or religion, tried to answer that question.”

63. “I lived in a dictatorship in Brazil, and I was arrested three times. I felt in my flesh what it is to live under such a regime and experience deprivation of freedom.”

64. “Music for me, it demands full concentration.”

65. “I talk to my readers on social networking sites, but I never tell them what the book is about. Writing is lonely, so from time to time I talk to them on the Internet. It's like chatting at a bar without leaving your office. I talk with them about a lot of things other than my books.”

66. “My connection with Brazil is so abstract. My blood and my way of thinking is Brazilian, but that's it. I don't tend to go back to the past, and although I have an apartment there, I rarely visit. When I move, I really move.”

67. “With all due respect, the Mona Lisa is overrated.”

68. “I love almost everything about my work except conferences. I am too shy in front of an audience. But I love signings and having eye contact with a reader who already knows my soul.”

69. “Today, writers want to impress other writers.”

70. “It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.”

71. “It's very difficult to read a book on your computer.”

72. “I've done everything I wanted to do, even if I have had to pay a very high price - which has been the case most of the time.”

73. “Publishers see free downloads as threatening the sales of the book.”

74. “However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.”

75. “I am a Catholic, not so committed to the church, but to the idea of the Virgin, the female face of God.”

76. “I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.”

77. “When I'm dancing, I'm not thinking about anything. I am here. I am totally there. You know? And the feeling is a sensation of being away from myself. My soul dances with the angels, and my body dances with my wife.”

78. “When you write an article about anything, trolls use the comments to attack. They feel frustrated - but haters are losers. It's not good to feed this aspect. It's more intelligent to be constructive.”

79. “Jesus lived a life that was full of joy and contradictions and fights, you know? If they were to paint a picture of Jesus without contradictions, the gospels would be fake, but the contradictions are a sign of authenticity.”

80. “I was arrested three times and tortured once.”

81. “I write from my soul. This is the reason that critics don't hurt me, because it is me. If it was not me, if I was pretending to be someone else, then this could unbalance my world, but I know who I am.”

82. “I'd have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.”

83. “I am a Catholic.”

84. “I never say I am a guru.”

85. “I wanted to write when I was young, but people said it was impossible. Then my parents locked me in a mental institution - they said I was crazy and would never make a living from writing.”

86. “Of course, to have money is just great because you can do what you think is important to you.”

87. “I don't set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.”

88. “I walk every day, and I look at the mountains and the fields and the small city, and I say: 'Oh my God, what a blessing.' Then you realise it's important to put it in a context beyond this woman, this man, this city, this country, this universe.”

89. “Everything for me is sacred, beginning with earth, but also going to things made by man.”

90. “Publishing is in a kind of Jurassic age.”

91. “MySpace is an addiction.”

92. “In the United States, I am a great success, but I am not a celebrity.”

93. “I'm modern because I make the difficult seem easy, and so I can communicate with the whole world.”

94. “Twitter is my bar. I sit at the counter and listen to the conversations, starting others, feeling the atmosphere.”

95. “I had this dream to become a writer since I was a teenager.”

96. “I hate to be smart.”

97. “I don't try to control my days.”

98. “I don't go to parties in general.”

99. “My readers - and I get 400 emails for a day, my readers normally they say, well, you understand me, and I answer, you do understand me also. We are in the same level.”

100. “I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death. They thought nobody can make a living from being a writer in Brazil. They were not wrong.”

101. “Most of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.”

102. “The only thing that relaxes me is archery. That's why I have to have apartments with gardens.”

103. “I tweet in the morning and the evening. To write 12 hours a day, there is a moment when you're really tired. It's my relaxing time.”

104. “Once I found this possibility to use Twitter and Facebook and my blog to connect to my readers, I'm going to use it, to connect to them and to share thoughts that I cannot use in the book.”

105. “When I write a book, I write a book for myself; the reaction is up to the reader. It's not my business whether people like or dislike it.”

106. “This may sound a little bit idealistic, but when I go to my blog, my Facebook page, my Twitter account, I talk to different people from all over the world, and you see how it's easy to establish a dialogue.”

107. “MySpace is my wife… Facebook is my mistress.”

108. “In writing, I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation.”

109. “Writing is a solitary experience. I'm extremely superstitious. If I talk about the book or name the title out loud before finishing, I feel the energy I need to write will be drained. It's so intimate, I can't even share it with my wife.”

110. “It's not difficult for me to put my feelings into written form. I try to be concise and to go direct to the subject. This is what people like about my work, and what the critics hate.”

111. “I'm first and foremost a writer. I followed my personal legend, my childhood dream of becoming a writer, but I can't say why I'm one.”

112. “I can't consciously explain how people feel after reading my books. All is too personal.”

113. “My literature is much more the result of a paradox than that of an implacable logic, typical of police novels. The paradox is the tension that exists in my soul.”

114. “The gigantic tension before the shooting of an arrow, and the total relaxation seconds later, is my way of connecting to the universe.”

115. “I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.”

116. “I have spent every New Year's Eve since 1992 in Lourdes. I spend the hour of my birth every year in the grotto. It's a place with meaning for me.”

117. “Physical elegance, which is what I am talking about here, comes from the body. This is no superficial matter, but rather the way that man found to honour the way he places his two feet on the ground.”