Aleph

"... you believed that time would teach you to grow closer to God. But time doesn't teach; it merely brings us a sense of weariness and of growing older."

"Traveling to past lives is like making a hole in  the floor and letting the flames of the fire in the apartment below scorch and burn the present."

"You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points."

"Past and future exist only in our memory."

"Travel is never a matter of money but of courage."

"Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change but the train keeps moving. Life is the train, not the station."

"When faced by any loss, there's no point in trying to recover what has been; it's best to take advantage of the large space that opens up before us and fill it with something new. In theory, every loss is for our own good; in practice, though, that is when we question the existence of God and ask ourselves: What did I do to deserve this?"

"Courage can attract fear and adulation, but willpower requires patience and commitment."

"If I can understand what's going on in the world, I can understand what's going on inside myself."

"I know only that a life without cause is a  life without effect."

"I learned long ago that in order to heal my wounds, I must have the courage to face up to them."

"I once read that in a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike."

"Routine has nothing to do with repetition. To become really good at anything, you have to practice and repeat, practice and repeat, until the technique becomes intuitive."

"I can hear an argument going on behind me, but I try to concentrate on what I'm doing."

"There is a proverb in Portuguese, that says, "What can't be cured must be endured.""

"And because I carried all that guilt around inside me, because victims always end up considering themselves to be the culprits, I decided to keep punishing myself. So, in my relationships with men, I've always sought suffering, conflict, and despair."

"What hurts us is what heals us."

"Life has been very hard on me, but, at the same time, it has taught me a great deal."

"To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life."

"I will never reach my goal by staying in the same place all the time. I can speak to my soul only when two of us are exploring deserts or cities or mountains or roads."

"I won't be able to remember anything afterward, but that doesn't matter; time is not a cassette tape that can be wound and rewound."

"Don't think about what you'll tell people afterward. The time is here and now. Make the most of it."

"If you spend too much time trying to find out what is good or bad about someone else, you'll forget your own soul and end up exhausted and defeated by the energy you have wasted in judging others."

"If you want to see a rainbow, you have to learn to like the rain."

"Perhaps we can change our minds and say that enough is enough. You don't need to climb a mountain in order to know that it's high; you don't have to go all the way to Vladivostok to be able to say that you've traveled on the Trans-Siberian Railway."

"Our eyes have become the mirrors of our souls, mirrors not only of our souls, perhaps, but of all the souls of all the people on this planet who are at this moment walking, loving, being born and dying, suffering or dreaming."

"What do you need in order to be able to write?" Yao asks.

"To love. As you loved your wife, or, rather, as you love your wife."

"Is that all?"

"You see this park? There are all kinds of stories here, and even though they've been told many times, they still deserve to be told again. The writer, the singer, the gardener, the translator, we are all a mirror of our time. We all pour love into our work. In my case, obviously, reading is very important, but anyone who puts all his faith in academic tomes and creative-writing courses is missing the point; words are life set down on paper. So seek out the company of others."

"Whenever I saw those literature courses at the university where I taught, it all seemed to me so..."

"Artificial?" I ask, completing the sentence. "No one can learn to love by following a manual, and no one can learn to write by following a course. I'm not telling you to seek out others writers to find people with different skills from yourself, because writing is no different from any other activity done with joy and enthusiasm."

"What about writing a book about the last days of Nicholas the Second?"

"It's not a subject that really interests me. It's an extraordinary story, but for me, writing is, above all, about discovering myself. If I had to give you one piece of advice, it would be this; don't be intimidated by other people's opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you want to do. Seek out people who aren't afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of that, their work often isn't recognized, but they are precisely the kind of people who change the world and, after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely."

"The important things that stay are the moments spent listening to people singing, telling stories, enjoying life."

"I've known lots of people who care about others and are extremely generous when it comes to giving and who feel real pleasure when someone asks them for advice or help. And that's fine; it's a good thing to help your neighbor. On the other hand, I know very few people capable of receiving, even when the gift is given with love and generosity. It's as if the act or receiving made them feel inferior, as if depending on someone else was undignified. They think, If someone is giving us something, that's because we're incapable of getting it for ourselves. Or else, The person giving me this now will one day ask for it back with interest. Or, even worse, I don't deserve to be treated well."

"The idea that time passes is important when you need to know when a train is going to leave, but apart form that, it's not very useful, not even when you're cooking."

"We are not the person other people wish we were. We are who we decide to be. It's always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility."

"But isn't prayer a way of bringing us closer to God?"

"Allow me to answer with another question" will all your prayers make the sun rise tomorrow? Of course not. The sun rises in obedience to a universal law. God is always close to us, whether we pray to him or not."

"Are you saying that our prayers are useless?" says Tatiana.

"Not at all. If you don't get up early, you'll never see the sun rise. If you don't pray, God may be near, but you won't feel His presence."

"Train your heart. That is the discipline every warrior needs. If you can control your heart, then you will defeat your opponent."

"Where have you been?" she asks.

"Where have you been?" is not an empty question. Any one asking it is also saying "I missed you," "I want to be with you," "I need to know what you've been up to."

"Only children believe they're capable of everything. They're trusting and fearless, so they believe in their own power and get exactly what they want. When children grow up, they start to realize that they're not as powerful as they thought and that they need other people in order to survive. Then the child begins to love and to hope his love will be requited; as life goes on, he develops an ever greater need to be loved in return, even if that means having to give up his power. We all end up where we are now: grown-ups doing everything we can to be accepted and loved."

"True wisdom means respecting the simple things we do, for they can take us where we need to go."

"An embrace means: I don't feel threatened by you; I'm not afraid to be this close; I can relax, feel at home, feel protected and in the presence of someone who understands me."

"Going back into the past and reopening old wounds is neither easy nor particularly important."

"... love is made up of choices."

"A hunter always knows what to expect, eat or be eaten."

"Whenever you play, tell yourself that the thing that hurt you so much has become a gift. You're wrong when you say that other people have recovered from the trauma; they've simply hidden it away in a place they never go to."

"Things aren't always the way we expect them to be," he goes on. "But I'm really grateful to you for coming."

"Is it possible to deviate from the path God has made? Yes, but it's always a mistake. Is it possible to avoid pain? Yes, but you'll never learn anything. Is it possible to know something without ever having experienced it? Yes, but it will never truly be part of you."

"Only two things can reveal life's great secrets: suffering and love."

-Paulo Coelho-