Paulo Coelho Quotes

Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see.

There's a type of freedom that occurs when everything that you've believed in and worked for is shattered, because then you have the opportunity to rebuild and to put yourself back together in a new way.

In my 20s I was such a serious, boring-looking person. I would never do my nails. I never even danced. But I was taught by the women. They had gone through hell, but they would dance and sing. I came to realise I can't argue for a happy world if I am not happy myself.

It will feel impossible; like you are dying inside this is your soul crying out for life. It may take everything you have; every ounce of will and strength. You will lose a part of yourself trying to save something essential and innocent. And when you have given everything, you will recover and you will be set free, and you will discover there was even more in you than you ever knew.

Whether she won or lost, she would continue to wrestle with life. It would not be with her own life alone but with all of life. Something had finally been released within her. And there it was, the sea.

That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.

To the sky, I rise / Spread my wings, and fly / I leave the past behind / And say goodbye to the scared child inside / I sing for freedom, and for love / I look at my reflection / Embrace the woman I've become / The unbreakable lotus in me / I now set free

There have been many people for whom limitations, failure, loss, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility and compassion. It made them more real.

You have to die a few times before you can really live.

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.

When you finally understand who you are, ages 6 through 60 will understand who you are. Because when they see a person that's come through all that I've come through, still standing, it's amazing.

Hope is for people who wait. And I don't want to wait no more. I'm not scared anymore. I'm not scared of myself. Of my things. Of my fear. Of absolutely nothing. And that's music.

The ugly duckling is a misunderstood universal myth. It's not about turning into a blonde Barbie doll or becoming what you dream of being; it's about self-revelation, becoming who you are.

You know, Motorcycle Diaries has no incredible stories, no sudden plot twists, it doesn't play that way. It's about recognizing that instance of change and embracing it.

There are no makeovers in my books. The ugly duckling does not become a beautiful swan. She becomes a confident duck able to take charge of her own life and problems.

Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.

I love the ability to transform because that, for me, is a liberation.

I think that what I have been truly searching for as a person, as a writer, as a thinker, as a daughter, is freedom. That is my mission. A sense of liberty, the liberty that comes not only from self-awareness but also from letting go of many things. Many things that weigh us down.

A really big thing I've learned - and I think it's so liberating - is when you realize no one knows what they're doing.

Dumped? Fired? Scorned? Humiliated? Totally pissed off? If so, I've got great news! You might be on your way to living your best life ever - if you consciously choose to channel this pain into fuel - and use it to motivate yourself to become your highest potential self!

I thought my story was over. But that was when I realised I finally had a story to tell - and it seems to remind people of their own story.

'Hedwig' is not autobiographical, but what she goes through is clearly a big metaphor. She doesn't want to be what she is, but she comes to an understanding that what happened to her has actually made her whole.

Paule Marshall does not let the black women in her fiction lose. While they lose friends, lovers, husbands, homes, or jobs, they always find themselves.

We're all capable of being more than we presently are, and the effort that it takes and the will that it takes and sometimes the trauma and tragedy that it takes to force us into that kind of growth is the story of our lives.

I think that New York liberated me in the sense that I moved here when I was 18, so it was a fresh perspective on life. I had been living in L.A. my whole life and I had never lived anywhere else, so being away from family and really making a name for myself was huge for me.