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

by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

A SECRET’S WORTH DEPENDS ON THE PEOPLE FROM WHOM IT MUST be kept.

But - - - there is no such thing as a “secret” once a second person is in on it.

“Television, my dear Daniel, is the Antichrist, and I can assure you that after only three or four generations, people will no longer even know how to fart on their own and humans will return to living in caves, to medieval savagery, and to the general state of imbecility that slugs overcame back in the Pleistocene era. Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that.”

Much of the time - particularly the last 3+ years in the US - I think this has already come to pass.

One has to pay some price for being able to piss standing up.”

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

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.

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.”

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.”

Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.”

When we stand in front of a coffin, we all see only what is good or what we want to see.”

“Wouldn’t hear of it. Statistics prove it: more people die in bed than in the trenches.”

“Wine turns the wise man into a fool and the fool into a wise man.

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

Fermin’s most useful observation on life.