THE SHADOW OF THE WIND – CARLOD RUIZ ZAFÓN

Some things can only be seen in shadows.

A few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us through our lives and sculpt a place in our memory to which, sooner or later – no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget – we will return.

A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.

Never trust anyone, especially the people you admire. Those are the ones who will make you suffer the worst blows.

This is a world of shadows, and magic is a rare asset.

Women have an infallible instinct for knowing when a man has fallen madly in love with them, especially when the male in question is both young and a complete dunce.

One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep.

People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough.

As a child she'd remember everything. Everything. Then children grow up and you no longer now what they think or what they feel. And that's how it should be, I suppose.

Presents are made for the pleasure of the one who gives them, not for the merits of those who receive them.

Nobody knows much about women, not even Freud, not even women themselves. But it's like electricity: you don't have to know how it works to get a shock.

Like the good ape he is, man is a social animal, characterized by cronyism, nepotism, corruption and gossip. That's the intrinsic blueprint for our 'ethical behavior'. It's pure biology.

The only useful thing about military service is that it reveals the number of morons in the population. And that can be discovered in the first two weeks; there's no need for two years. Army, Marriage, the Church and Banking: the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse.

Television is the Antichrist, and I can assure you that after only three of four generations, people will no longer even know how to fart on their own. Humans will return to living in caves, to medieval savagery, and to the general state of imbecility that slugs overcome back in the Pleistocene era. Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say – it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke of that.

People talk too much. Humans aren't descended from monkeys. They come from parrots.

The female heart is a labyrinth of subtleties, to challenging for the uncouth mind of the male racketeer. If you really want to posses a woman, you must think like her, and the first thing to do is to win over her soul. The rest, that sweet, soft wrapping which steals away your senses and your virtue, is a bonus.

Life isn't like a novel, you know. In life you have to take sides.

Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some fore thought. A moron or a lout, however, doesn't stop to think or reason. He acts on instinct, like an animal, convinced that he's doing good, that he's always right, and sanctimoniously proud to go around fucking up, if you'll excuse the French, anyone he perceives to be different from himself, be it because of skin color, creed, language, nationality, or his leisure pursuits. What the world really needs are more thoroughly evil people and fewer borderline pigheads.

We exist as long as someone remembers us.

''Sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger than to someone you know. Why is that?''''Probably because a stranger sees us the way we are, not as they wish us to be.''

Marriage and family are only what we make of them. Without that they're just a nest of hypocrisy. Garbage and empty words. But if there is real love, the sort you don't go around telling everyone about, the sort that is felt and lived…

Only three or four things are worth living for; the rest is shit.

This business of courtship is like tango: absurd and pure embellishment. But you're the man, and you must take the lead.

Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.

People who have no life always have to stick their nose into the life of others.

Destiny is casually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is to have visits. You have to go for it yourself.

People always have eyes for what is none of their business.

I believe that nothing happens by chance. Deep down, things have their own secret plan, even though we don't understand it.

The miracle happened only once, and when it did, it spoke in a language of secrets that were they disclosed, would vanish again forever.

The truths of life know no age.

Mother Nature is the meanest of bitches, that's the sad truth.

Those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words.

Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.

Never trust he who trusts everyone.

The father-son relationship is based on thousands of little white lies. Presents from the Three Kings, the tooth fairy, meritocracy, and many others.

Don't force the key when you wind it up, or it'll come lose again.

Wine turns the wise man into a fool and the fool into a wise man.

There are no second chances in life, except to feel remorse

We all do what we're best at.

While you're working, you don't have to look life in the eye.

Making money isn't hard in itself. What's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting your life to.

Some disappointments honor those who inspire them.

You only love truly once in a lifetime, even if you aren't always aware of it.

Most of us have the good or bad fortune of seeing our lives fall apart so slowly we barely notice it.

You women listen more to your heart and less to all the nonsense. That's why you live longer.

Memories are worse than bullets.

God gives us life, but the world's landlord is the devil.

Nothing feeds forgetfulness better than war.

Coincidences are the scars of fate. There are no coincidences. We are puppets of our subconscious desires,

A story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that hhe would be unable to discover otherwise.

We are all whores, sooner or later.