The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)

by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

The words with which a child’s heart is poisoned, through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.”

“What do you expect? One has to pay some price for being able to piss standing up.”

Funny

There are few reasons for telling the truth, but for lying the number is infinite.

“I’ve heard he’s been suffering badly from prostate trouble ever since he swallowed the pip of a loquat, and now he can only pee if someone hums ‘The Internationale’ for him,” he put in. “Fascist propaganda,” the taxi driver explained, more devout than ever. “The comrade pees like a bull. The Volga might envy such a flow.”

Money is like any other virus: once it has rotted the soul of the person who houses it, it sets off in search of new blood.

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you,”

At my age the flow of blood to the brain has precedence over that which flows to the loins.”

Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it.”

a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind,