Paulo Coelho Quotes

Life has many ways of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.

I forgive the blows that hurt me,

The defeated are those who never fail. Defeat means that we lose a particular battle or war. Failure does not allow us to go on fighting.

In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.

Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks, and do what you really want to do.

As an author, I should be defending ‘intellectual property’, but I’m not. Pirates of the world, unite and pirate everything I’ve ever written!

A man's dignity isn't measured by the people he has around him when he's at the peak of his success, but by his ability not to forget those who helped him when his need was greatest.

I forgive the anger and the cruelty,

I’ve met a man and fallen in love with him. I allowed myself to fall in love for one simple reason: I’m not expecting anything to come of it. I know that, in three months’ time, I’ll be far away and he’ll be just a memory, but I couldn’t stand living without love any longer; I had reached my limit…
Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meeting are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. 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 directions.

This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you.

There's nothing deeper than love. In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the princesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.

Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death? Stop thinking all the time that you're in the way, that you're bothering the person next to you. If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem

Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me.

A disciple asked Hejasi: - I want to know what is the most funny thing about human beings. Hejasi said: - That they always think crooked: they’re in a hurry to grow, then lament their lost childhood, and soon lose the money they need to keep their health. "They are so anxious about the future, that they neglect the present, and thus live in neither the present nor the future." "They live as if they were never going to die, and die as if they had never lived."

On 11 November 1997, Veronika decided that the moment to kill herself had — at last! — arrived.