Catholics From Brazil

"And if I’m alone in bed, I will go over to window, look up at the sky and feel certain that loneliness is a lie, because the Universe is there to keep me company."

"Men and women whisper to each other because they have turned a sacred gesture into a sinful act. If two bodies merely join together, that is not sex, it is merely pleasure. Sex goes far beyond pleasure. In sex, relaxation and tension go hand in hand, as do pain and pleasure, shyness and the courage to go beyond one’s limits... It isn’t enough to imagine everything that might happen if we allowed ourselves to join not just our bodies, but our souls as well."

"Let us plunge together, then, down the dangerous path of surrender. It may be dangerous, but it is the only path worth following."

"Let us forget all that we are taught about how it is noble to give and humiliating to receive. Because for most people, generosity consists only in giving, but receiving is also an act of love. Allowing someone else to make us happy will make them happy too."

"We were born alone and we will die alone. But, while we are on this planet, we must accept and glorify our act of faith through other people."

"Elegance tends to be mistaken for superficiality and mere appearance. Nothing could be further from the truth: some words are elegant, others can wound and destroy, but all are written with the same letters. Flowers are elegant, even when hidden among the grasses in a meadow. The gazelle when it runs is elegant, even when it is fleeing from a lion. Elegance is not an outer quality, but a part of the soul that is visible to others... Elegance lies not in the clothes we wear, but in the way we wear them... It isn’t in the way we wield a sword, but in the dialogue we hold that could avoid a war. But every tribe, every people, has values that they associate with elegance: hospitality, respect, good manners."

"Arrogance attracts hatred and envy. Elegance arouses respect and Love. Arrogance causes us to humiliate our fellow man or woman. Elegance teaches us to walk in the light. Arrogance complicates words, because it believes that intelligence is only for the chosen few. Elegance transforms complex thoughts into something that everyone can understand."

"When we are walking our chosen path, we walk elegantly, emanating light."

"The weak are wicked. Goodness can only be expected from the strong."

"God is where you let Him in."

"May love be your guide in every moment of your life."

"Coelho’s books include eight novels, two s, several collections of occasional writing, a volume of quotations, and “Warrior of the Light: A Manual,” a book of s. They have sold nearly a hundred million copies. Bellboys, waitresses, and policemen recognize his face; in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, President Clinton was photographed carrying a copy of “The Alchemist.” In his writings, Coelho, who is Catholic—though he says he does not “kiss the hand of the Pope, that’s for sure”—presents himself as a searcher and a sage, a hybrid of Carlos Castaneda and Kahlil Gibran. His cosmology, which includes angels and devils, signs, omens, and, for each person, a destiny called his Personal Legend, promises that whatever is sought—love, money, inspiration—can be readily attained. Quotidian events, like weather and coincidence, he sees as miraculous."

"The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. I like it because it is hopeful and inspiring. It tells the story of a boy who embarks on a journey to find a treasure, but as he goes along, he learns from every part of his journey and every person he meets. In the end, he finds his treasure in a very interesting place. His story tells you that you should believe in yourself and continue your journey."

"We need to love. Even when it leads us to the land where the lakes are made of tears, to that secret, mysterious place, the land of tears!"

"When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way."

"The wise are wise only because they love."

"When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny."

"Terror, terror, terror. Life was a reign o terror in the shadow of the guillotine."

"The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions."

"There is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for."

"You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it."

"A disciple asked Hejasi: - I want to know what is the most funny thing about human beings. Hejasi said: - That they always think crooked: they’re in a hurry to grow, then lament their lost childhood, and soon lose the money they need to keep their health. "They are so anxious about the future, that they neglect the present, and thus live in neither the present nor the future." "They live as if they were never going to die, and die as if they had never lived.""

"Brazil is my way to see the world. Being born in that country means: "you don't have a wall separating the physical reality from the magical reality.""

"As an author, I should be defending ‘intellectual property’, but I’m not. Pirates of the world, unite and pirate everything I’ve ever written!"

"We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how."

"I ask myself: are defeats necessary? Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for a dream, we have no experience and make mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times."

"If you come here, you will find a hidden treasure."

"I told you that your dream was a difficult one. It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them."

"At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie."

"There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe.... The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness."

"E quando você quer alguma coisa, todo o Universo conspira para que você realize seu desejo."

"At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny."

"Life attracts life."

"As he mused about these things, he realised that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure."

"He had worked for an entire year to make a dream come true, and that dream, minute by minute, was becoming less important. Maybe cause that wasn't really his dream."

"We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand."

"If I am really a part of your dream, you'll come back one day."

"If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise," said the seer. "If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur."

"The desert takes our dreams away from us, and they don't always return. We know that, and we are used to it. Those who don't return become a part of the clouds, a part of the animals that hide in the ravines and of the water that comes from the earth. They become part of everything... They become the Soul of the World."

"One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving."

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

"Don't think about what you've left behind, the alchemist said to the boy as they began to ride across the sands of the desert. "Everything is written in the Soul of the World, and there it will stay forever.""

"If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return."

"There is only one way to learn … It's through action."

"A grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it."

"It is said that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn."

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

"The wise men understood that this natural world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect. God created the world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand his spiritual teachings and the marvels of his wisdom. That's what I mean by action."

"Wherever your heart is, that is where you'll find your treasure."

"It's true that everything has its Personal Legend, but one day that Personal Legend will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new Personal Legend, until, someday, the Soul of the World becomes one thing only."