Paulo Coelho Quotes

Normal is such a hard word to use, because everyone's idea of normal is different. Real is what the word is. I think you either live a real life or you live a weird celebrity pseudolife. I think I lead a really real life.

In terms of an identity, an identity reflects an individuality, by definition. And, if there is a quality present, it is recognizable and it can be named. If you can't name it, it means you don't recognize it.

If two people were exactly alike, one of them would be unnecessary.

The analysis of the thing is not the thing itself.

She had in mind a different kind of looking person, because his appearance is not at all like mine.

Probably every person is some mixture of wanting to feel a sense of commonality and shared experience with others but also wanting to feel completely singular and unique.

We are alone on this planet. It's not a choice. Here we are. This is what everyone has to deal with.

From what I could see, the hardwood was just fine. Then again, I'd just see a windmill and an open sky, too, never feeling the need to conquer either. You think it's all obvious and straightforward, this world. But really, it's all in who is doing the looking.

Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? If all the world were falcons, what of that? The wonder of the eagle were the less, But he not less the eagle.

Every thing is what it is, and not another thing.

Memory is like fiction; or else it's fiction that's like memory.

I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was.

Why do you love the woman you're in love with? Because she is. And that, after all, is God's own definition of Himself; I am that I am. The girl is who she is. Some of her isness spills over and impregnates the entire universe. Objects and events cease to be mere representations of classes and become their own uniqueness; cease to be illustrations of verbal abstractions and become fully concrete. Then you stop being in love, and the universe collapses, with an almost audible squeak of derision, into its normal insignificance.

In fact, a sense of essence is, in essence, the essence of sense, in effect.

The world we inhabit is abundant beyond our wildest imagination. There are trees, dreams, sunrises; there are thunderstorms, shadows, rivers; there are wars, flea bites, love affairs; there are the lives of people, Gods, entire galaxies. The simplest human action varies from one person and occasion to the next-how else would we recognize our friends only from their gait, posture, voice, and divine their changing moods? Only a tiny fraction of this abundance affects our minds. This is a blessing, not a drawback.

Where there is no difference, there is only indifference.

Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world.

...dreams were dreams and reality was reality and she felt people were better off understanding the difference.

I like the Cyclostyle ink; it is so inky. I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people.... When we call a man "manly" or a woman "womanly" we touch the deepest philosophy.

Spoons and skimmers you can be undistinguishably together; but vases and statues require each a pedestal for itself.

The flower you single out is a rejection of all other flowers; nevertheless, only on these terms is it beautiful.

I'm trying to get more into other things, where reality is nothing but each individual's way of thinking.

Being like everybody is the same as being nobody.

At any moment in time, our reality is based on whatever we focus on.

It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.