Spanish novelist (1964- )
You know who your true friends are when things go wrong for you, but the opposite is also true. When things go well, the people who really love you are happy.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"The Shadow Maker", The Telegraph, Nov. 27, 2005
I'm not talking to anyone, I'm delivering a monologue. It's the inebriated man's prerogative.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
If only everything hurt as little as a blow to the face.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
Deep down nobody is bad, only frightened.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Prisoner of Heaven
Men are like chestnuts they sell in the street: they're all hot and they all smell good when you buy them, but when you take them out of the paper cone you realise that most of them are rotten inside.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Prisoner of Heaven
People might not agree with me, but I think a woman should have a feminine shape, something you can get your hands on. You, on the other hand, look like you might be partial to the skinny type, a point of view I fully respect, don't misunderstand me.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
I've always thought that we are what we remember, and the less we remember, the less we are.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"Q & A: Author Carlos Ruiz Zafon", Time, Jun. 30, 2009
A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
I'm fascinated by the period that goes from the Industrial Revolution to right after World War II. There's something about that period that's epic and tragic. There's a point after the industrial period where it seems like humanity's finally going to make it right. There were advances in medicine and technology and education. People are going to be able to live longer lives; literacy is starting to spread. It seemed like finally, after centuries of toiling and misery, that humanity was going to get to a better stage. And then what happens is precisely the contrary. Humanity betrays itself.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"Q & A: Author Carlos Ruiz Zafon", Time, Jun. 30, 2009
Human nature provides the lyrics, and we novelists just compose the music.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"An interview with Carlos Ruiz Zafon", Book Browse
All true stories begin and end in a cemetery.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
I was always fascinated by the fact that you could take paper and ink and create worlds, images, characters. It seemed like magic.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"Q & A: Author Carlos Ruiz Zafon", Time, Jun. 30, 2009
I would go to newsstands and buy paperbacks they were selling for tourists, usually bestsellers and mass market paperbacks. In the beginning, it was like going to the Rosetta Stone--I didn’t understand anything, I'd get a headache--but I began to figure it out, and I'd read a lot of Stephen King paperbacks. I've always said he was my English professor.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"A Gothic favorite comes stateside", Book Page
The most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach them to want to imitate the rich.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
The teachers tried everything, even pleading, but Tomas was in the habit of addressing them only in Latin, a language he spoke with papal fluency and in which he did not stammer. Sooner or later they all resigned in despair, fearing he might be possessed: he might be spouting demonic instructions in Aramaic at them, for all they knew.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
We think we understand a song's lyrics but what makes us believe in them, or not, is the music.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
May I offer you something? A small glass of cyanide?
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
Our world will not die as the result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, or making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
Perhaps for that very reason, I adored her all the more, because of the eternal human stupidity of pursuing those who hurt us the most.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind