Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"Don Ricardo wanted a successor worthy of himself. Jorge would always be cocooned in the privileges of his class, hiding from his mediocrity in creature comforts. Penelope, the beautiful Penelope, was a woman, and therefore a treasure, not a treasurer. Julian, who had the soul of a poet, and therefore the soul of a murderer, fulfilled all the requirements. It was only a question of time."
83 Quotes
"Don Ricardo wanted a successor worthy of himself. Jorge would always be cocooned in the privileges of his class, hiding from his mediocrity in creature comforts. Penelope, the beautiful Penelope, was a woman, and therefore a treasure, not a treasurer. Julian, who had the soul of a poet, and therefore the soul of a murderer, fulfilled all the requirements. It was only a question of time."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"He let the hours go by lost in the magic of words, shedding his skin and his name, feeling like another person. He allowed himself to be carried away by the dreams of shadowy characters, the only refuge left for him."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"I believe that nothing happens by chance. Deep down, things have their secret plan, even though we don't understand it."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not the merits of who receives them."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"But I couldn't absorb the idea that death could actually walk by my side, with a human face and a heart that was poisoned with hatred."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"All I know is that once Julián told the kids in the building that he had a sister only he could see. He said she came out of mirrors as if she were made of thin air and that she lived with Satan himself in a palace at the bottom of a lake."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"I couldn't help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever. I felt myself surrounded by millions of abandoned pages, by worlds and souls without an owner sinking in an ocean of darkness, while the world that throbbed outside the library seemed to be losing its memory, day after day, unknowingly, feeling all the wiser the more it forgot."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"Our world will not die as the result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, or making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"You talk as if Bea were a trophy.''No, as if she were a blessing,' Fermin corrected."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"And here I was thinking you were a bit slow, what with so much asking and not knowing anything."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"Life has enough torturers as it is, without you going around moonlighting as a Grand Inquisitor against yourself."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"In the haunted shade of the Ateneo, her hands wrote a curse on my skin that was to hound me for years."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"In those days I learned that nothing is more frightening than a hero who lives to tell his story, to tell what all those who fell at his side will never be able to tell."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"I guessed she must be, at most, twenty, but there was something about her manner that made me think she could be ageless. She seemed trapped in that state of perpetual youth reserved for mannequins in shop windows."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"You young people never say anything. And us old folks don't know how to stop talking."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"I started off for home, where I planned to recruit a good book and hide away from the world."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"The city was asleep, and the bookshop felt like a boat adrift in a sea of silence and shadows."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time. It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de Santa Monica in a wreath of liquid copper."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
"I handed the photo back to her. The caretaker gazed at it as if it were a lucky charm, a return ticket to her youth."
Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
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