Paulo Coelho Quotes

I always write to understand my place in the world. I can see myself and my life unfold on the page, and I can understand my strengths, my weaknesses - I can see where I need to step up a bit.

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man's own eyes when they look upon his own person.

I don't think or write from big ideals.

My personality doesn't interest me.

'What am I missing?' is a much more important question than 'How cool am I?'

I'm not going to lie, there are more interesting ways to spend your time than answering questions about yourself. But if there were no questions to ask me, I might have a beef with that.

Worthy or not, my life is my subject, and my subject is my life.

I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.

I had to examine myself very thoroughly to find the right path personally.

It's not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient.

I've done thousands of interviews in my life, and it's a format that I quite enjoy, because I think of questions in interviews as an opportunity to sort of gauge my growth in a way. It gives me an idea of how I'm navigating this world that I'm in.

In my books I might hold the mirror to my own face. If others would like to borrow the mirror, they're welcome. The books aren't there to accuse others - merely to raise issues and keep the debates alive.

I don't think I gain anything by seeing myself.

Writing music on your own makes you think a lot about your life. Who are you? Would you change anything about yourself? This is where it comes from.

I sometimes find that in interviews you learn more about yourself than the person learned about you.

The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.

A mentor long departed told me that the greatest gift in political life, in any life, is to view yourself objectively, at arm's length, to make an assessment of yourself. So whom do I rely on? I rely on myself.

I'm quite influenced in this by one of my heroes, Montaigne, who thought a man's real task was to render as honest an account of himself as he could.

I think I'm pretty self-aware.

It's nice to take the gloves off, to really examine your character's desires and goals.

The biggest challenge we all face is to learn about ourselves and to understand our strengths and weaknesses. We need to utilize our strengths, but not so much that we don't work on our weaknesses.

It's hard for me to speak of my own development. I'm the one behind the steering wheel, and it is easier to see where the vehicle is going when you are looking at it. For me, it feels like I have been doing the same thing all along.

I don't find myself intriguing.

I try to figure out how much of the character I can find in myself because you don't want to get outside of your skill-set.

For a memoir to really succeed, the author has to do such hard work before they come to the page. They have to do a brutal self-examination of everything they believe to be true.