The 90 best phrases of Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Being the most widely read Spanish writer in the world after Miguel de Cervantes is a merit granted as a consequence of his effort and literary talent. In each of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's phrases we can find an invitation to explore our critical sense and to enjoy classic literature.
Recently, on June 19, 2020, Carlos Ruiz Zafón passed away from colon cancer that he had fought against in recent years. From Psychology and Mind we want to remember and pay a small tribute to this fantastic Spanish author.
The wind's shadow, The game of the angel and The Cemetery of the Forgotten, are the most representative works of his narrative, and have led him to obtain important prizes and are considered one of the best-known and most representative writings in Spain.
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The best phrases and reflections of Carlos Ruiz Zafón
In this space we have prepared a compilation of the best phrases of Carlos Ruiz Zafón that reflect his passion for narrative and his thought.
1. I want to be a respectable man again, you know. Not for me, because the respect of this orpheon of monkeys that we call humanity makes me very weak, but for her
In this phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, the desire to be in search of personal evolution in the name of love is expressed.
2. I only believe in what I see
In this sentence the position is radical.
3. When there is class, speed is a trifle
Phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, from his work Marina de él.
4. Their mere presence struck me as a propaganda ploy in favor of the moral emptiness of the universe and the mechanical brutality with which it destroyed the pieces that were no longer useful to them.
A reference to the mystery of how some things can no longer help us.
5. Mother Nature is a huge whore
Sometimes nature is not generous with us and puts us in situations that are like a backpack that we carry for the rest of our lives.
6. Good words are vain kindnesses that do not require any sacrifice and are appreciated more than kindnesses in fact
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón tells us about the value of benevolence expressed.
7. Life is the mortgage of the soul: even if one leaves with good intentions, moving forward implies committing betrayals, with others or with oneself. There are those who are lucky enough not to fall too much into it and who are directly a son of a bitch, but the dilemma about whether or not we do the right thing is for all of us.
A reflection on what we know as free will.
8. Do you like mysteries? I think if you had asked me if I liked arsenic my answer would have been the same.
The mysteries can be fascinating but they also involve an energy expenditure that if we can avoid it is much better.
9. Do you know the best of broken hearts? That can only really be broken once. the rest are scratches
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón tells us about how we learn and overcome experiences.
10. Who really wants wants in silence, with facts and never with words
Actions are what count.
11. There are times and places when being nobody is more honorable than being somebody.
Many times we build an image with unreliable or empty bases.
12. By the time you stop to think if you love someone, you have stopped loving them forever.
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón talks about the fact that doubt regarding love for something is synonymous with insecurity.
13. Every book, every volume you see, has a soul. The soul of the one who wrote it, and the soul of those who read it and lived and dreamed of it
A beautiful reflection on the dynamic between author and reader.
14. Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside
Quote by Carlos Ruiz Zafón that talks about the value of books and how they resonate with us.
15. In an infinite universe, many things escape human reason.
Beautiful reflection on things that are difficult to explain due to their complexity and depth.
16. We exist as long as someone remembers us
We exist because we have been recognized, because we resonate with others. It is probably the most important footprint we leave behind.
17. Nobody asks for what they prefer to ignore
This phrase by Carlos Ruíz Zafón talks about the comfort zone.
- Related article: "How to get out of your comfort zone? 7 keys to achieve it"
18. A good liar knows that the most effective lie is always a truth with a key piece missing.
On putting together dishonest strategies.
19. Sometimes we believe that people are lottery tickets: that they are there to make our absurd illusions come true
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz addresses situations where people are a means and not an end.
20. Juanito only knows how to fart and those only know how to laugh and inhale them. As he sees, the social structure here is not very different from that of the outside world.
This sentence is similar to another that says when it rains everyone gets wet, and that is that in some way the things that happen in the context are going to affect us.
21. Most of us have the happiness or misfortune to see how life falls apart little by little, without us noticing.
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz speaks to us in relation to the time we stay in this world and the passing of time.
22. The one who is very attached to a herd is that he has something of a sheep
The spaces where we move, with which we identify and relate speak about who we are.
23. Literature, at least the good one, is a science with blood of art. Like architecture or music
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón talks about his passion for literature.
24. Nothing is fair. The most that can be hoped for is to be logical. Justice is a rare malady in a world otherwise sound as an oak
The fair can have an individual look.
25. You don't have to admit it if it jeopardizes your sense of masculinity. I know that you men believe that the size of your stubbornness corresponds to that of your shame
About the lack of freedom to show our humanity by living within a certain rule for being part of a named group.
26. As a general rule, the more talent you have, the more doubt you have. and vice versa
It is never enough when we are passionate about talent.
- Related article: "Personal talents: more than 20 tips to develop them"
27. We spend most of our lives dreaming, especially when we are awake.
About dreams consciously built from our hearts.
28. The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, due to pettiness or ignorance, remain entrenched in the memory and sooner or later burn his soul.
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz refers to the consequences on a deeper level, the one that affects our humanity.
29. Nothing happens by chance, deep down things have their secret plan, even if we don't understand it
You must be patient with the things that happen to us, some kind of learning we are going to obtain.
30. If people thought a quarter of what they speak, this world would be a paradise
This phrase reminds us of the use of reason before issuing any kind of opinion.
31. Dear Daniel, the sooner you realize this, the better: Nothing in this filthy life is worth two bucks if you don't have someone to share it with.
The value of money sometimes falls on the reason in which it is invested.
32. Hating is a talent that is learned over the years
In this phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, what we usually collect from experiences is addressed.
33. We all have a secret hidden under lock and key in the attic of the soul.
About the mysteries that govern our lives.
34. Don't try to change the world, try to stop the world from changing you.
We must try to maintain our essence and make it prevail.
35. The lyrics of the song are what we think we understand, but what makes us believe it or not is the music.
Music is the engine of our emotions.
- You may be interested in: "What happens in your brain when you listen to your favorite music?"
36. Gifts are made for the pleasure of the giver, not for the merit of the recipient
the act of gifting it includes putting a little time and energy into the satisfaction of another.
37. I would like my last memory to be that of that sunrise on the beach and discover that all this time has been nothing more than a long nightmare.
About a desire founded on hopelessness.
38. You don't learn anything important in life. it is simply remembered
All learning means an event.
39. Nothing deceives more than memories
Memories sometimes bring all the information from the context in which they occurred, but the circumstances in which they are evoked are never the same.
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40. Time has taught me not to lose hope, but not to trust them too much, they are cruel and vain, without conscience
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón invites us to maintain hope.
41. The difficult thing is not to earn money without more -he lamented-. The hard part is earning it by doing something worth dedicating your life to.
A reflection on our motivations and dreams.
42. This world will not die of an atomic bomb as the newspapers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, making a joke of everything, and also a bad joke
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón brings us closer to the real cause of the problems of humanity.
43. This is just the beginning. In ten years I will be the apprentice and you will be the teacher
In the learning process, evolution occurs constantly.
44. I smiled to myself. Even the worst news is a relief when it's no more than confirmation of something you already knew without wanting to know.
On maintaining a positive stance in the face of circumstances.
45. You don't know what thirst is until you drink for the first time
Experiences often create needs.
46. Contemplating a future as wide and luminous as that avenue, and for an instant I thought that there were no more ghosts there than those of the absence and loss, and that light that smiled at me was borrowed and was only worth as long as I could hold my gaze, second to second
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz talks about expectations.
47. And for lack of words, I bit my voice
What we keep silent harms us.
48. Time does to the body what stupidity does to the soul. rots it
Curious way of relating these elements.
49. Death has these things: everyone is aroused by sentimentality. Facing a coffin, we all see only the good, or what we want to see.
This phrase is related to situations in which people only rescue the good values that the person who died had. They apply a kind of holiness to it.
- Related article: "55 phrases about death and the afterlife"
50. By the time reason understands what happened, the wounds in the heart are already too deep.
And that is where the lessons are born.
51. Time heals everything, I thought, except the truth.
The truth transcends, we cannot run away from it.
52. People with small souls always try to belittle others.
This phrase by Carlos Ruiz Zafón tells us about petty relationships.
53. I know that you will wait for me and I know that I will recognize you among people, as I would recognize you even if a thousand years had passed. I know for a long time
About how people project themselves onto others, it's as if they were already known before.
54. Does the madman know that he is mad? Or are they the others, who insist on convincing him of his unreason to safeguard his existence from chimeras?
This phrase reflects on madness from those who experience it.
55. Money doesn't buy happiness, but everything else does.
Happiness as a pure state but not as satisfaction of needs.
- You may be interested in: "The 10 keys to being happy, according to science"
56. To speak is for fools, to be silent for cowards, and to listen to wise men.
About the art of listening.
57. And when he smiles, it even seems to me that this filthy world has something of a future.
This phrase by Carlo Ruiz Zafón reflects on the effect of illusion.
58. I leaned over her and traced the skin of her belly with my fingertip. Bea lowered her eyelids, her eyes, and smiled at me, sure and strong. She was seventeen years old and life on her lips
The writer talks about romance.
59. The truth is not to be found, son. she finds one
On the power exerted by the truth.
60. The only way to really know a writer is through the trail of ink that she leaves behind, that person that one believes to see is nothing more than a hollow character and that the truth is always hidden in fiction
Many of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's phrases are addressed to the relation to the connection between the writer and the reader.
61. Paris is the only city in the world where starvation is still considered an art
Curious reflection of the author on the about this city that has inspired many artists.
62. They both wondered if it had been the cards that life had dealt them, or if it had been the way they had been played.
About how mysterious some events are.
63. Women, with notable exceptions, are smarter than we are, or at least more honest with themselves about what they do or don't want. Another thing is that they tell one or the world. You are faced with the enigma of nature. The female, babel and labyrinth. If you let her think, you're lost. Remember: warm heart and cold mind. The seducer's code
Reflection on her perception of feminine power.
64. Fate does not make home visits, you have to go for it
You don't have to wait for things to come.
65. The world is very small when you have nowhere to go
We expand that world when our projects increase.
66. When I die, everything that is mine will be yours, except my dreams.
Dreams carry our personal brand.
67. Allow me to buy you a glass of wine to toast our mistakes.
Phrase that is part of the book The game of the angel.
68. The future is not desired, it is deserved
What we build in the present in the future we will have as a reward.
69. It is a mistake to believe that dreams come true without offering anything in return.
Dreams are the result of constant work.
70. He who does not know where he is going does not get anywhere
You have to always have a port to run aground.
71. But the opposite of what we expect always happens, doesn't it?
Things don't always happen as we plan.
72. When the debt of a loan is not settled, interest must be paid. But that does not cancel the debt.
Some debts are contracted for life.
73. Time doesn't exist, that's why you don't have to waste it.
It is convenient to make the most of every hour and every minute.
74. Certain childhood images remain recorded in the album of the mind as photographs, as scenes to which, no matter how much time passes, one always returns and remembers.
The capacity that humans have to treasure memories is amazing.
75. He was looking forward to seeing it finished exactly as I had dreamed it. He wanted to be able to share it with the readers and for it to be what it had to be.
Zafón, about his most famous tetralogy.
76. Bad memories haunt you without the need to take them with you.
Some become heavy slabs that follow us wherever we go.
77. One thing that I have always wanted to do for years was to incorporate audiovisual narrative, the grammar of film, television and advertising into the traditional novel.
His novels are a true multisensory experience.
78. For any writer, surviving and not falling down the hole is big enough.
Zafón always recognized that he never saw his success coming.
79. These books were born as a tribute to literature and it seems to me that it is not necessary to try to transform them into something else to make them more popular.
Zafón has always refused to transfer his works to the big screen.
80. Painting is writing with light.
A beautiful allegory on painting.
81. Book fairs serve to prove that authors also walk and have legs.
He was always a great lover of literary fairs.
82. Defeats in silence taste better.
Sometimes we need time to digest them.
83. He didn't ask questions, he machine-gunned them.
Zafón perfectly described the idiosyncrasies of all his characters.
84. The 20th century in Spain and throughout Europe is an enormously rich scenario for any writer.
His best-known novels take place in Spain at the turn of the century.
85. We all have a secret hidden under lock and key in the attic of the soul.
There we hide our most personal contents.
86. I have to confess that large crowds sometimes intimidate me.
Although he was a successful writer, he never lavished himself excessively in public places.
87. We only remember what never happened.
His work is full of truly poetic phrases.
88. I've been a huge fan of Stephen King since he was a kid.
Just like many of us from his work, Zafón idolized King since he was little.
89. I am from Barcelona and in my city the iconography of the dragon is present everywhere. Since I was a child I developed a sympathy with the dragon.
He always defined himself as a Barcelona lover of his city.
90. John Williams gave me the first page of the original Star Wars score.
Throughout his life, he was able to meet several of his childhood idols.