Famous Paulo Coelho Quotes

On Love:

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

I still pray but it’s something automatic, and I’m not even sure I still believe in it… Because I’ve suffered, and God didn’t listen to my prayers. because many times in my life I have tried to love with all my heart, and my love has wound up being

All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.
(From: Eleven Minutes)

Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they’re not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days. They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or–such is the pleasure they experience–they may never finish it. No eleven minutes for them.
(From: Eleven Minutes)

The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility.
(From: Eleven Minutes)

Love will never separate a man from his personal legend
(From: The Alchemist)

Love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant.
(From: The Witch o Portobello)

On Life:

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.

I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.

The roller-coaster is my life; life is a fast, dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; it’s taking chances, falling over and getting up again; it’s mountaineering; it’s wanting to get to the very top of yourself and feeling angry and dissatisfied when you don’t manage it
(From: Eleven Minutes)

We live in a vale of tears…We can have all the dreams we like, but life is hard, implacable, sad.
(From: Eleven Minutes)

Everything in life has its price.
(From: The Alchemist)

If you concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. You’ll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens…Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.
(From: The Alchemist)

I’m alive. When I’m eating that’s all I think about. If I’m on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight,it will be just as good a day as any to die. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life is the moment we are living now.
(From: The Alchemist)

We are travelers on a cosmic journey,stardust,swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.
(From: The Alchemist)

On God:

God has a prepared path for us to follow. We just have to read the omens he has left for us.
(From: The Alchemist)

LIVE. If you live, god will live with you. If you refuse to run his risks, he’ll retreat to that distant heaven and be merely a subject for philosophical speculation.
(From: Veronika Decides to Die)