Eleven Minutes

by Paulo Coelho

She considered becoming a nun and devoting the rest of her life to a kind of love that didn’t hurt and didn’t leave painful scars on the heart – love for Jesus.

The love between humans and Jesus is like no other. Jesus loved us so much, and all He asks is that we recognise Him. How great a love.

life is a fast, dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; it’s taking chances, falling over and getting up again; it’s mountaineering;

If I had fallen asleep and suddenly woken up on a roller coaster, what would I feel? Well, I would feel trapped and sick, terrified of every bend, wanting to get off. However, if I believe that the track is my destiny and that God is in charge of the machine, then the nightmare becomes something thrilling.

Read. Forget everything you’ve been told about books and just read.’

the only thing that can change someone’s mind is love.

I need to write about love. I need to think and think and write and write about love – otherwise, my soul won’t survive.

Men are very strange,

freedom only exists when love is present.

This goes for love between people but also love through and with God.

Wait a week. I’ve learned that waiting is the most difficult bit, and I want to get used to the feeling, knowing that you’re with me, even when you’re not by my side.’

what is real always finds a way of revealing itself.

A special piece of paper, decorated in sombre colours, which everyone agreed was worth something – and she believed it, everyone believed it

💸

from now on, every minute spent by his side would be a year of suffering in the future, for everything she could have said to him and didn’t, for her memories of his hands, his voice, his loving support, and his stories.

It’s odd how, when you live in a city, you always postpone getting to know it and usually end up never knowing it at all.

a symbol of resurrection, in which the instrument of torture had lost all its meaning, its terror, its importance.

The cross which represents Jesus's sacrifice isn't always seen the way it was in the past, as highlighted here.

They went into a cafe which was the same as all the others, but that afternoon, it was different, because they were there together and because they loved each other.

How beautiful. :( Simply and not so simply being in love.

Maria had found someone like herself, or, rather, like everyone else.

The author continues to make this inclination that we are all different yet we all experience the world, life and sex in the same way. I'm not sure whether I loved it or hated it, but it was definitely something that kept me intrigued and stood out most to me.

Everything that goes against Nature, against our most intimate desires, is normal in our eyes, even though it’s an aberration in God’s eyes.

Our fall from God in the past has made the things that shouldn't be the most normal and tolerable in this day and age.

Men would always go looking for novelty; they were still the troglodyte hunter, obeying the reproductive instinct of the human race.

The author clearly hates men!!!!!! 😭 (this is a joke, just loved the use of troglodyte as I discovered it recently through an Instagram comment)

why was the world so concerned with appearances?

No, films never show that. They finish before the real world begins. It’s best not to think too much about it.

‘We’ll always have Paris.’

Beautifully concluded. 🥲❤️