"Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own."
— Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist - Gift Edition)

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."
— Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)

"Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say "yes" to life?"
— Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes: A Novel)

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."
— Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)

"People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of."
— Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)

"When I had nothing to lose, I had everything. When I stopped being who I am, I found myself."
— Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes: A Novel)

"The simple things are also the most extraordinary things,and only the wise can see them."
— Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)

"That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too."
— Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)

"We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand."
— Paulo Coelho

"A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires."
— Paulo Coelho

"Ester asked why people are sad.
"That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams."
— Paulo Coelho (The Zahir)

"Because it's not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it's not love to see everything from a distance, like you do. Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. When I first reached through to it, I thought the Soul of the World was perfect. But later, I could see that it was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that's where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are."
— Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)