Spanish novelist (1964- )
Nobody knows much about women, not even Freud, not even women themselves. But it's like electricity: you don't have to know how it works to get a shock on the fingers.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
Never trust he who trusts everyone.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
My wife and I were never happy here. Spain can be narrow-minded, and provincial. In LA you don't have to justify yourself. I think I will leave here again soon and move back there.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"The Shadow Maker", The Telegraph, Nov. 27, 2005
Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
I knew when I was writing The Angel's Game that a lot of people would be upset that I didn't write Shadow Of The Wind 2. That's okay, that's part of the game. You do what you have to do. If they like it, great. If they don't, too bad. What are you going to do?
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"Interview: Carlos Ruiz Zafon", The Scotsman, Jun. 13, 2010
Those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
His curiosity and love of gossip, albeit with an academic slant, made even the loudmouthed women in the bazaar look like rank amateurs.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Midnight Palace
There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
Man ... heats up like a lightbulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand...heats up like an iron. Slowly, over a low heat, like tasty stew. But then, once she has heated up, there's no stopping her.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
Waiting is the rust of the soul.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not the merits of who receives them.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
I think all writers, if they write from the heart -- and I think it's the only way to do it, otherwise it's the most stupid occupation in the world, if you're not doing it because you really love it, and it's very important for you -- I think you always write about yourself, because you want to share your inner world, and you want to explore your own world and communicate with the readers, so in a way everything in The Shadow of the Wind comes from within me and from my own experiences, but also from the greater world of literature, from fiction, from the great novels, the great stories, and all of these elements are, because in a way the novel is a love letter to reading, to the great novels, to the great stories, and all of that is combined, because I'm not only a writer -- I'm a reader. So I write the books I want to read.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"An Interview with Carlos Ruiz Zafon", official website
It's the student who makes the teacher, not the other way around.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
Once you lost all hope, time began to go faster and the senseless days deadened your soul.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Prisoner of Heaven
Sometimes I think that Darwin made a mistake and that in fact man is descended from the pig, because eight out of every ten members of the human race are swine, and as crooked as a hog's tail.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Prisoner of Heaven
Justice is a rare illness in a world that is otherwise a picture of health.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain. One of the great Catalan poets, Joan Maragall, wrote this famous poem in which he called Barcelona the great enchantress, or some kind of sorceress, and in which the city has this dark enticing presence that seduces and lures people. I think Barcelona has a lot of that.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Independent, Jun. 24, 2012
You know, not every good book needs to be a movie, or a television series, or a video game. There's great work in those mediums, of course, but sometimes a book should remain a book. I still believe nothing tells a story with the richness and complexity of a good novel. When people say they think a book would make a good movie, they say this sometimes because, if it worked, they already saw all the images in the movie theatre that is in their brains. And sometimes that is the way it should stay.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"Carlos Ruiz Zafon's love letter to literature", New Zealand Listener, Mar. 14, 2013
It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
attributed, Identifying, Treating, and Preventing Childhood Trauma in Rural Communities