Explore Quotes by Paulo Coelho

I came to realize that I was always looking for myself in the women I loved. I looked at their lovely, clean faces, and saw myself reflected in them. They, on the other hand, looked at me and saw the dirt on my face and, however intelligent and self confident they were, they ended up seeing themselves reflected in me and thinking that they were worse than they were. Please don't let that happen to you.

I was not I, I was nothing - and that seemed to me quite marvelous.

I believe in signs....what we need to learn is always there before us, we just have to look around us with respect & attention to discover where God is leading us and which step we should take. When we are on the right path, we follow the signs, and if we occasionally stumble, the Divine comes to our aid, preventing us from making mistakes.

To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive.

The world is being created and destroyed in this very moment. Whoever you met will reappear, whoever you lost will return. Don’t betray the grace that was bestowed on you. Understand what is going on inside you and you will understand what is going on inside everyone else. Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace. I came with a sword.

Infatuation was a good thing. It gave spice to life, and added to its enjoyment... But it was different from love. Love was worth everything, and couldn't be exchanged for anything.

Facing the difficulties, I can choose either to be a poor victim or a great adventurer.

When something undesirable grows in my soul, I ask God to give me the courage to mercilessly pluck it out.

Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.

Time heals almost everything. But when you are healed, you are too old to enjoy

I simply believe that a book has a journey to make, and should not be condemned to being stuck on a shelf… Let’s leave our books free to travel, then, to be touched by other hands, and enjoyed by other eyes.

I will be able to love above all discontentment. To give even when I am stripped of everything. To dry tears even when I am still crying. To believe even when I am discredited.

That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don't expect to get anything back, don't expect recognition for your efforts, don't expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

Most human beings still cannot trust love.

Love perseveres. It's men who change.

Men always have their reasons. But the fact is that they always wind up leaving.

Even if loving meant leaving, or solitude, or sorrow, love was worth every penny of its price.

Lovers need to know how to lose themselves and then how to find themselves again.

My brained warned me, but my heart didn't want to take its advice.

May my tears run just as far, that my love might never know that one day I cried for him.

But now I knew that true love was above all that and that it would be better to die than to fail to love.