Quotes by Paulo Coelho
(Page 7 of 7)

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.

Today, writers want to impress other writers.

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

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

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

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

Beauty is the greatest seducer of man.

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.

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.

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

The more violent the storm, the quicker it passes.

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.

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.

I don't try to control my days.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

There is an afterlife. I am convinced of this.

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.

Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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