Charlotte > Charlotte's Quotes

“Yes, my mind was wandering. I wished I were there with someone who could bring peace to my heart someone with whom I could spend a little time without being afraid that i would lose him the next day. With that reassurance, the time would pass more slowly. We could be silent for a while because we'd know we had the rest of our lives together for conversation. I wouldn't have to worry about serious matters, about difficult decisions and hard words.”
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.”
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.”
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“God always offers us a second chance in life.”
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“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

“Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path.

No one wants their life thrown into chaos. That is why a lot of people keep that threat under control, and are somehow capable of sustaining a house or a structure that is already rotten. They are the engineers of the superseded.

Other people think exactly the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought, hoping to find in passion the solutions to all their problems. They make the other person responsible for their happiness and blame them for their possible unhappiness. They are either euphoric because something marvelous has happened or depressed because something unexpected has just ruined everything.

Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it - which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?

I don't know.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“No one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they're not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days. They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or--such is the pleasure they experience--they may never finish it. No eleven minutes for them.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“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.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken it. But in order to do that, we need the other person. The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Don't listen to the malicious comments of those friends who, never taking any risks themselves, can only see other people's failures.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.

Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meetings are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes direction.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that's a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“I’ve met a man and fallen in love with him. I allowed myself to fall in love for one simple reason: I’m not expecting anything to come of it. I know that, in three months’ time, I’ll be far away and he’ll be just a memory, but I couldn’t stand living without love any longer; I had reached my limit…
Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meeting are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes directions.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“but something always went wrong, and the relationship would end precisely at the moment when she was sure that this was the person with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life. After a long time, she came to the conclusion that men brought only pain, frustration, suffering and a sense of time dragging.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“I'm not a body with a soul, I'm a soul that has a visible part called the body.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“...and that, in the end, the most interesting people always leave.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Sometimes life is very mean: a person can spend days, weeks, months and years without feeling new. Then, when a door opens - a positive avalanche pours in. One moment, you have nothing, the next, you have more than you can cope with.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Dreaming is very pleasant as long as you are not forced to put your dreams into practice.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Considering the way the world is, one happy day is almost a miracle.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“You can either be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It all depends on how you view your life.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“He’s always asking: ‘Is that new? I haven’t seen that before.’ It’s like, Why don’t you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet.”
― Michelle Obama

“Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts ... good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don't hurt. They're not painful. That's not just with somebody you want to marry, but it's with the friends that you choose. It's with the people you surround yourselves with.”
― Michelle Obama

“Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming