The Zahir - Best Quotes

I read the book, 'The Zahir' by Paulo Coelho recently. Here are some of the best quotes from the amazing novel.

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About freedom
Slaves to the luxury, to the appearance of luxury, to the appearance of the appearance of luxury. Slaves to a life they had not chosen, but which they ad decided to live because someone had managed to convince them that it was all for the best. And so their identical days and nights passed, days and nights in which adventure was just a word in a book or an image on the television that was always on, and whenever a door opened, they would say:
'I am not interested. I'm not in the mood.'
How could they possibly know if they were in the mood or not if they had never tried? But there was no point in askingl the truth was they were aftaid of any change that would upset the world they had grown used to.

..freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me.

All you have to do is to pay attention: lessons always arrive when you are ready, and if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step.

On seeing the restoration work going on at a cathedral:
And suddenly, in the middle of the central nave, i realize something very important: the cathedral is me, it is all of us. We are all growing and changing shape, we notice certain weaknesses that need to be corrected, we don't always choose the best solution, but we carry on regardless, trying to remain upright and decent, in order to do honour not to the walls or the doors or the windows, but to empty space inside, the space where we worship and venerate what is dearest and most important to us.

About friends:
Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives.

About Love:
Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.

This force on earth to make us happy, to bring us closer to God and to our neighbours and yet, given the way that we love now, we enjoy one hour of anxiety for every minute of peace.About the situation in a war:

About love

‘A fatally wounded soldier never asks the medical team: “Please save me!” His last words are usually: “Tell me wide and son that I love them.” At the last moment, they speak of love.’

On books being movies

On why the author never sold rights of his novels to movies – rather more on why a movie made out of a novel is never as good:

Up until then, whenever anyone mentioned the possibility of making a film adaptation, my answer had always been, ‘No, I’m not interested.’ I believe that each reader creates his own film inside his head, gives faces to the characters, constructs every scene, hears the voices, smells the smells. And that is why, whenever a reader goes to see a film, based on a novel that he likes, he leaves feeling disappointed.

About railway tracks

After explaining the reason for the railway tracks to be exactly 143.5 cms apart:

‘..At some point in history, someone turned up and said: when two people get married, they must stay frozen like that for the rest of their lives. You will move along side by side like two tracks, keeping always that same distance apart. Even if sometimes one of you needs to be a little further away or a little closer, that is against the rules. The rules say: be sensible, think of the future, think of your children. You can’t change, you must be like two railway tracks that remain the same distance apart all the way from their point of departure of their destination. The rules don’t allow for love to change, or to grow at the start and diminish halfway through – it’s too dangerous. And so, after the enthusiasm of the first few years, they maintain the same distance, the same solidity, the same functional nature. Your purpose is to allow the train bearing the survival oftje species to head off into the future: your children will only apart. If you’re not happy with something that never changes, think of them, think of the children you brought into the world’

About the question: ‘Why am I unhappy?’

No one should ever ask themselves that: why am I unhappy? The question carries within it the virus that will destroy everything. If we ask that question, it means we want to find out what makes us happy. If what makes us happy is different from what we have now, then we must either change once and for all or stay as we are, feeling even more unhappy.

On the perception:

‘Marie, let’s suppose that two firemen go into a forest to put out a small fire. Afterwards, when they emerge and go over to a stream, the face of one is all smeared with black, while the other man’s face is completely clean. My question is this: which of the two will wash his face.’

‘That’s a silly question. The one with the dirty face of course.’

‘No, the one with the dirty face will look at the other man and assume that he looks like him and vice-versa, the man with the clean face will see his colleague covered in grime and say to himself: I must be dirty too. I’d better have a wash.’

Esther asks why people are sad.

“That’s simple,” says the old man. “They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things other people’s ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they their dreams.”

The accomodator

The accommodator or giving-up point: there is always an event in our lives that is responsible for us failing to progress: a trauma, a particularly bitter defeat, a disappearance in love, even a victory that we did not quite understand, can make cowards of us and prevent us from moving on. As part of the process of increasing his hidden powers, the shaman must first free himself from that giving-up point and, to do so, he must review his whole life and find out where it occurred.

About loneliness

Needless to say, I had been alone on other occasions during the year. Needless to say, my girlfriend was only two hours away by plane. Needless to say, after a busy day, what could be better than a stroll through the narrow streets and lanes of the old city, without having to talk to anyone, simply enjoying the beauty around me. And yet the feeling that surfaced was one of oppressive, distressing loneliness – not having someone with whom I could share the city, the walk, the things I’d like to say.

..there is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exist or not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence.