Paulo Coelho

Top 10 Paulo Coelho Quotes: Your Roadmap to Success

On Confidence
You cannot sell your next book by underrating your book that was just published. Be proud of what you have.
On Trust
Trust your reader, don’t try to describe things. Give a hint and they will fulfill this hint with their own imagination.
On Expertise
You cannot take something out of nothing. When you write a book, use your experience.
On Critics
Some writers want to please their peers, they want to be “recognized”. This shows insecurity and nothing else, please forget about this. You should care to share your soul and not to please other writers.
On Taking notes
If you want to capture ideas, you are lost. You are going to be detached from emotions and forget to live your life. You will be an observer and not a human being living his or her life. Forget taking notes. What is important remains, what is not important goes away.
On Research
If you overload your book with a lot of research, you are going to be very boring to yourself and to your reader. Books are not there to show how intelligent you are. Books are there to show your soul.
On Writing
I write the book that wants to be written. Behind the first sentence is a thread that takes you to the last.
On Style
Don’t try to innovate storytelling, tell a good story and it is magical. I see people trying to work so much in style, finding different ways to tell the same thing. It’s like fashion. Style is the dress, but the dress does not dictate what is inside the dress.

With his unique style and story-telling abilities, Paulo Coelho has become one of the most celebrated literary figures.

By Param Davies Published 2022-07-29

Paulo Coelho is one of the most well-known authors in literary history. And much like his creative works, his personal story is full of twists and turns. When Paulo Coelho told his parents he aspired to be a writer, they thought he was physically insane. Paulo Coelho was born on August 24, 1947, and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is most known for using complex symbolism to depict the journeys of his characters, who are typically motivated by spiritual beliefs. Paulo Coelho revisits ancient legends and remote customs in order to evoke themes of love, the quest for self-knowledge, and the genesis of thought. He discusses independence and solitude while considering the future of humanity in his search for safety, love, and spirituality. He is the author of novels that have been translated into 81 different languages and 170 different countries, giving him geographical independence. Coelho blatantly distinguishes himself from other Brazilian authors, with over 210 million copies sold.

Coelho’s novels often explore and delve in the themes of love, self-awareness, sexual desire, solitude, chasing one’s dreams, and traveling, while weaving these elements brilliantly with the characters and plots that more-often-than-not satisfy the soul.

The Upheaval Of Paulo Coelho’s Early Life

Rio de Janeiro is where Coelho was nurtured. However, he disobeyed the rules of his upbringing as a Roman Catholic, so his parents temporarily put him in a mental institution. In 1970, Coelho left his legal studies to travel around South America, Mexico, North Africa, and Europe. He returned to his own country in 1972 and started collaborating with the renowned singer-songwriter Raul Seixas on pop and rock song lyrics. Coelho served a brief sentence in jail in 1974 for allegedly engaging in subversive actions against the Brazilian government.

He worked for Polygram and CBS Records upon his release until 1980, when he started new journeys around Europe and Africa. He traveled the 500 miles (800 km) of routes along the Santiago de Compostela route, which pilgrims from France to Spain initially utilized in the Middle Ages. This lengthy voyage, influenced by a resurgence of interest in Catholicism, served as the inspiration for his debut book, O diário de um Mago (1987), which was translated into English in 1992 and reprinted in 1995 as The Pilgrimage affirmed rightly in the Strive.

The Alchemist, a mystical narrative of an Andalusian shepherd boy’s trek across North Africa in pursuit of wealth, was published by Coelho in 1988. When the book was republished in Brazil after being dumped by its first publisher, it was extremely successful. In one of his books, The Valkyries, he describes a search to communicate with angels that he and his first wife undertook while they were young and deeply immersed in the countercultural scene of the 1970s. He once more went to fiction, this time a story about a young Spanish woman’s spiritual enlightenment.
Coelho continues to focus both his fiction and nonfiction works on issues of faith and spirituality. He had previously chronicled the progression of his return to the Catholic faith in The Pilgrimage and The Valkyries. In addition, as stated in the Paulo Coelho blog, The Biblical prophet Elijah’s narrative is retold in The Fifth Mountain, while a collection of spiritual advice from well-known religious luminaries is presented in Manual of the Warrior of Light within a fictional setting. Even though Coelho’s books continued to be popular in Brazil and abroad, reviewers frequently criticized them for being unduly didactic and moralizing.

The Elation Of His Other Exemplary Works And Establishments

Coelho also published Life: Selected Quotations (2007), a similar compilation of English-translated extracts, and Frases (1996), a collection of condensed passages from his body of work. Additionally, in 1997, Coelho gathered pieces from his weekly column in the newspaper O Globo into a book named Maktub. Coelho increased the number of people who read the novels written by him through blogging, expanding on the concepts he raised in them, and making his works freely downloadable. To help children and the elderly, he established the Paulo Coelho Institute in 1996.

The Chronicles Of His Journey

Paulo Coelho’s success philosophy, often known as his secret to success, may be encapsulated in tenacity, self-belief, and having the guts to pursue one’s ambitions. Coelho never would have taken the initiative to pursue his aspirations if he had not had faith in himself. Beyond that, he would never have overcome the first challenges that ordinarily discouraged the unsure if he had not persevered and believed in his job. Thus, he never would have achieved the astounding success he currently has without self-belief, the confidence to follow his heart, and the drive to see it through, as stated in the Strive.

The parable by Paulo Coelho demonstrates that if one has faith in oneself and sincerely desires something, the universe will work with them to make it happen if they take action.

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.

 

Don’t explain. Your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you.

 

But 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.

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.

 

When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive.

 

Some people appear to be happy, but they simply don’t give the matter much thought. Others make plans: I’m going to have a husband, a home, two children, a house in the country. As long as they’re busy doing that, they’re like bulls looking for the bullfighter: they react instinctively, they blunder on, with no idea where the target is. They get their car, sometimes they even get a Ferrari, and they think that’s the meaning of life, and they never question it. Yet their eyes betray the sadness that even they don’t know they carry in their soul. Are you happy?

 

Close some doors today. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere.

 

It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.

 

Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to reach out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if it means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness. The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us.

 

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

 

The world is divided into those who understand me and those who don’t. In the case of the latter, I simply leave them to torment themselves trying to gain my sympathy.

 

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 forget their dreams.

 

Tragedy always brings about radical change in our lives, a change that is associated with the same principle: loss. When faced by any loss, there’s no point in trying to recover what has been; it’s best to take advantage of the large space that opens up before us and fill it with something new.

 

I forgive the tears I was made to shed, I forgive the pain and the disappointments, I forgive the betrayals and the lies, I forgive the slanders and intrigues, I forgive the hatred and the persecution, I forgive the blows that hurt me, I forgive the wrecked dreams, I forgive the stillborn hopes, I forgive the hostility and jealousy, I forgive the indifference and ill will, I forgive the injustice carried out in the name of justice, I forgive the anger and the cruelty, I forgive the neglect and the contempt, I forgive the world and all its evils… I also forgive myself. May the misfortunes of the past no longer weigh on my heart. Instead of pain and resentment, I choose understanding and compassion. Instead of rebellion, I choose the music from my violin. Instead of grief, I choose forgetting. Instead of vengeance, I choose victory. I will be capable of loving, regardless of whether I am loved in return, of giving, even when I have nothing, of working happily, even in the midst of difficulties, of holding out my hand, even when utterly alone and abandoned, of drying my tears, even while I weep, of believing, even when no one believes in me… So it is. So it will be.

 

When I had nothing more to lose, I was given everything. When I ceased to be who I am, I found myself. When I experienced humiliation and yet kept on walking, I understood that I was free to choose my destiny.

~~

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
 

in Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton

De ses sommets escarpés jusqu’à sa côte sauvage, le territoire pyrénéen ne se laisse pas facilement apprivoiser. Lors d’un pèlerinage sur le chemin de Compostelle, l’écrivain brésilien Paulo Coelho s’égare dans ces montagnes. Portant en lui un passé douloureux lié à la dictature brésilienne, il se lance dans une quête existentielle qui aboutira à son livre le plus connu : l’Alchimiste.
Pays : France
Année : 2022

Arte TV (version française) (Deutsche Version hier verfügbar)

Near Tokyo lived a great Samurai warrior, now old, who decided to teach Zen Buddhism to young people. In spite of his age, the legend was that he could defeat any adversary.

One afternoon, a warrior – known for his complete lack of scruples – arrived there. He was famous for using techniques of provocation: waiting until his adversary made the first move and counterattacking with fulminating speed.

All gathered on the town square, and the young man started insulting the old master. He threw a few rocks in his direction, spat in his face, shouted every insult under the sun – he even insulted his ancestors. At the end of the afternoon, by now feeling exhausted and humiliated, the impetuous warrior left.

Disappointed by the fact that the master had received so many insults and provocations, the students asked:

– How could you bear such indignity? Why didn’t you use your sword, even knowing you might lose the fight, instead of displaying your cowardice in front of us all?

– If someone comes to you with a gift, and you do not accept it, who does the gift belong to? – asked the Samurai.

– He who tried to deliver it – replied one of his disciples.

– The same goes for envy, anger and insults – said the master. – When they are not accepted, they continue to belong to the one who carried them.

The Ninja warriors go to the field where some wheat has just been planted. Obeying the trainer’s command, they jump over the places where the seeds were sown.

Every day the Ninja warriors return to the field. The seeds turn into buds, and the warriors jump over them. The buds turn into small plants, and the warriors jump over them.

They do not become bored. They do not feel it is a waste of time.

The wheat grows, and the jumps become higher and higher. In this way, when the plant is ripe, the Ninja warriors still manage to jump over it.

Why? As a result of their jumping over what many may have seen as insignificant, has allowed them to be keenly aware of their obstacles.

(taken from “Manual of the warrior of the light )