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

by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren’t already complicated enough.”

“Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not for the merits of who receives them,”

“The most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach them to want to imitate the rich.

Like all old cities, Barcelona is a sum of its ruins. The great glories so many people are proud of—palaces, factories, and monuments, the emblems with which we identify—are nothing more than relics of an extinguished civilization.”

as if I believed that with that kiss I could deceive time and convince it to pass us by, to return some other day, some other life.

“Making money isn’t hard in itself,” he complained. “What’s hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one’s life to.”

“It’s the only thing that brings us together now, you see. Memories. We make so many mistakes in life, young lady, but we only realize this when old age creeps up on us.

“God gives us life, but the world’s landlord is the devil….”

Time goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you, like trains that don’t stop at your station.