Adultery Paulo Coelho Quotes

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Beware when making a woman cry. God is counting her tears.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Today I am a woman torn between the terror that everything might change and the equal terror that everything might carry on exactly the same for the rest of my days.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Love isn't just a feeling. It's an art. And like any art, it takes not only inspiration but also a lot of work.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
We are the ones who create the messes in our heads. It does not come from outside.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
What kills a relationship between two people is precisely the lack of challenge, the feeling that nothing is new anymore. We need to continue to be a surprise for each other.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
We aren’t who we want to be. We are what society demands. We are what our parents choose. We don’t want to disappoint anyone; we have a great need to be loved. So we smother the best in us. Gradually, the light of our dreams turns into the monster of our nightmares. They become things not done, possibilities not lived.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Why is Love more important than Faith? Because Faith is merely the road that leads us to the Greater Love.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
You only need to hide if you’re doing something you shouldn’t.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
YOU don’t choose your life; it chooses you. There’s no point asking why life has reserved certain joys or griefs, you just accept them and carry on.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
When night comes and no one is watching, I feel afraid of everything: life, death, love or the lack of it; the fact that all novelties quickly become habits; the feeling that I'm wasting the best years of my life in a pattern that will be repeated over and over until I die; and sheer panic at facing the unknown, however exciting and adventurous that might be.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
If Evil exists, it’s to be found in our fears
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Trusting the one you love always brings good results.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
There is no better time than the autumn to begin forgetting the things that trouble us, allowing them to fall away like dried leaves. There is no better time to dance again, to make the most of every crumb of sunlight and warm body and soul with its rays before it falls asleep and becomes only a dim light bulb in the skies.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
when we release our dark side, it will completely overshadow the best in us.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I haven’t the slightest interest in being happy. I prefer to live life passionately, which is dangerous because you never know what might happen next.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I have a gift for inventing fantasies with extraordinary speed.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
It feels like my soul is slowly leaving my body and heading off to an unknown place, some "safe" place where it doesn't have to put up with me and my night terrors.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
He's been sent by the devil to destabilize something that was already fragile. How could I fall in love so quickly with someone I don't even know?
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Record things in your heart. It’s more important than trying to show people what you’re experiencing.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Going after a dream has a price. It may mean abandoning our habits, it may make us go through hardships, or it may lead us to disappointment, et cetera. But however costly it may be, it is never as high as the price paid by people who didn’t live. Because one day they will look back and hear their own heart say: ‘I wasted my life.’ ” He is not making things any easier. Let’s suppose
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Dear Depression, please keep your distance. Don’t be nasty. Find some other person with more reason than me to look in the mirror and say: “What a pointless existence.” Whether you like it or not, I know how to defeat you. You’re wasting your time.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Living is making decisions and dealing with the consequences.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn't know why life is being unfair to it".
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
but this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
When you love each other, you have to be ready for anything. Because love is like a kaleidoscope, the kind we used to play with when we were kids. It’s in constant movement and never repeats itself. If you don’t understand this, you are condemned to suffer for something that really only exists to make us happy.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I controlled the jealousy I feel because of you, and I’m happy with that. You know why? Because I always have to show I’m worthy of your love. I have to fight for our marriage, for our union, in ways that have nothing to do with our children. I love you. I would endure anything, absolutely anything, to always have you by my side. But I can’t stop you from leaving one day. So if that day comes, you are free to leave and seek your happiness. My love for you is stronger than anything, and I would never stop you from being happy.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Time heals everything, don’t you think?” That depends. Time can often make things worse.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Learn to love better. This should be our goal in the world: learn to love. Life offers us thousands of opportunities for learning. Every man and every woman, in every day of our lives, always has a good opportunity to surrender to Love. Life is not a long vacation, but a constant learning process. And the most important lesson is learning to love. Loving better and better... But one thing will be forever marked on the soul of the universe: my Love. All in spite of my mistakes, my decisions that caused others to suffer, and the moments when I thought it didn't exist.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Going after a dream has a price. It may mean abandoning our habits, it may make us go through hardships, or it may lead us to disappointment, et cetera. But however costly it may be, it is never as high as the price paid by people who didn’t live. Because one day they will look back and hear their own heart say: ‘I wasted my life.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I’m a cornered tiger with nowhere to run; the only option that remains is to attack.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Buddhists say that a fixed smile, however false, lights up the soul.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Love isn’t just a feeling; it’s an art. And like any art, it takes not only inspiration, but also a lot of work.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Feeling that the simplest of tasks requires a Herculean effort. Being riddled with guilt because you have no reason to feel like this when there are so many people in the world who are really suffering.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Could it be fear? But what could be worse than living a sad, gray life, in which every day is the same? What could be worse than the fear that everything will disappear, including my own soul, and leave me completely alone in this world when I once had everything I needed to be happy?
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
love something I don’t possess.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I have nothing and I am everything.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I love being with my family, feeling that I’m both protector and protected.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
It’s loneliness. Even though I’m surrounded by loved ones who care about me and want only the best, it’s possible they try to help only because they feel the same thing—loneliness—and why, in a gesture of solidarity, you’ll find the phrase “I am useful, even if alone” carved in stone. Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn’t know why life is being unfair to it. But we still wake up in the morning and take care of our children, our husband, our lover, our boss, our employees, our students, those dozens of people who make an ordinary day come to life. And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within. Even knowing that everyone, at some point, has felt completely and utterly alone, it is humiliating to say, “I’m lonely, I need company. I need to kill this monster that everyone thinks is as imaginary as a fairy-tale dragon, but isn’t.” But it isn’t. I wait for a pure and virtuous knight, in all his glory, to come defeat it and push it into the abyss for good, but that knight never comes. Yet we cannot lose hope. We start doing things we don’t usually do, daring to go beyond what is fair and necessary. The thorns inside us will grow larger and more overwhelming, yet we cannot give up halfway. Everyone is looking to see the final outcome, as though life were a huge game of chess. We pretend it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, the important thing is to compete. We root for our true feelings to stay opaque and hidden, but then … … instead of looking for companionship, we isolate ourselves even more in order to lick our wounds in silence. Or we go out for dinner or lunch with people who have nothing to do with our lives and spend the whole time talking about things that are of no importance. We even manage to distract ourselves for a while with drink and celebration, but the dragon lives on until the people who are close to us see that something is wrong and begin to blame themselves for not making us happy. They ask what the problem is. We say that everything is fine, but it’s not … Everything is awful. Please, leave me alone, because I have no more tears to cry or heart left to suffer. All I have is insomnia, emptiness, and apathy, and, if you just ask yourselves, you’re feeling the same thing. But they insist that this is just a rough patch or depression because they are afraid to use the real and damning word: loneliness. Meanwhile, we continue to relentlessly pursue the only thing that would make us happy: the knight in shining armor who will slay the dragon, pick the rose, and clip the thorns. Many claim that life is unfair. Others are happy because they believe that this is exactly what we deserve: loneliness, unhappiness. Because we have everything and they don’t. But one day those who are blind begin to see. Those who are sad are comforted. Those who suffer are saved. The knight arrives to rescue us, and life is vindicated once again. Still, you have to lie and cheat, because this time the circumstances are different. Who hasn’t felt the urge to drop everything and go in search of their dream? A dream is always risky, for there is a price to pay. That price is death by stoning in some countries, and in others it could be social ostracism or indifference. But there is always a price to pay. You keep lying and people pretend they still believe, but secretly they are jealous, make comments behind your back, say you’re the very worst, most threatening thing there is. You are not an adulterous man, tolerated and often even admired, but an adulterous woman, one who is ...
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Men cheat because it’s in their genetic code. A woman does it because she doesn’t have enough dignity; in addition to handing over her body, she always ends up handing over a bit of her heart. A true crime. A theft. It’s worse than robbing a bank, because if one day she is discovered (and she always is), she will cause irreparable damage to her family. For men it is just a “stupid mistake.” For women, it feels like a spiritual crime against all those who surround her with affection and support her as a mother and wife.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
You don’t choose your life; it chooses you. There’s no point asking why life has reserved certain joys or griefs, you just accept them and carry on. We can’t choose our lives, but we can decide what to do with the joys or griefs we’re given.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
There is none so blind as the one who does not want to see.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Life is not a long vacation, but a constant learning process.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I open the curtains in my office and see people out there, some walking and holding hands without having to worry about the consequences. And I can’t show my love,
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
But every day we meet someone whose behavior suddenly changes from one moment to the next. And we wonder: what happened to this person I thought I knew? Why is he acting so aggressively? Is it stress at work? And then the next day the person is normal again. You're relieved, but soon after the rug is pulled out from under you when you least expect it. And this time, instead of asking what's wrong with this person, you wonder what you did wrong.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
It isn’t love (or is it?), but that doesn’t matter. My love belongs to me and I’m free to offer it to whomever I choose, even if it’s unrequited. Of course, it would be great if it were requited, but if not, who cares.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
After a certain age, we put on a mask of confidence and certainty. In time, that mask gets stuck to our face and we can’t remove it. As children, we learn that if we cry we’ll receive affection, that
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
We already have everything we need. There is nothing to improve. Thinking we are good or bad, fair or unfair, all that is nonsense.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Not one word to stop me from doing something I shouldn't? 'No. By doing what you shouldn't, you will realize it yourself. As I said in the restaurant, the light in your soul is greater than the darkness. But for this you must go all the way to the end of the game.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Nature speaks to me as if I were its beloved daughter. The mountain tells me: “You have my strength.” The lakes tell me: “You have my peace and my calm.” The sun tells me: “Shine like me, go beyond yourself. Listen.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
There is no better time than the autumn to begin forgetting the things that trouble us, allowing them to fall away like dried leaves. There is no better time to dance again, to make the most of every crumb of sunlight and warm body and soul with its rays before it falls asleep and becomes only a dim lightbulb in the skies.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Dear Depression, please keep your distance. Don't be nasty. find some other person with more reason than me to look in the mirror and say: "What a pointless existence." Whether you like it or not, i know how to defeat you. You're wasting your time.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I am a woman torn between the terror that everything might change and the equal terror that everything might carry on exactly the same for the rest of my days.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
The aging process is more traumatic for those who think they can control the passage of time.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Today I am a woman torn between the terror that everything might change and the equal terror that everything might carry on exactly the same for the rest of my days. —Paulo Coelho, Adultery
Esther Perel (The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity)
Let yourself get carried away by the night from time to time. Look up at the stars and try to get drunk on the sense of infinity. The night, with all its charms, is also a path to enlightenment. Just as a dark well has thirst-quenching water at its bottom, the night, whose mystery brings us closer to the mystery of God, has a flame capable of enkindling our soul hidden in its shadows.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Dreaming isn’t as simple as it seems. On the contrary, it can be quite dangerous. When we dream, we put powerful engines in motion and can no longer hide the true meaning of our life from ourselves. When we dream, we also make a choice of what price to pay.” Now. The longer I take, the more suffering I’ll cause us both.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Naturally, I seek consolation in other people’s suffering.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
You don’t choose your life; it chooses you.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
See, it's not that I'm jealous of others. I just don't understand why they can be happy and I can't.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
To love abundantly is to live abundantly. To love forever is to live forever. Eternal life is coupled with Love. Why do we want
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I imagine that some people spend years allowing the pressure to build up inside them without even noticing, and then one day some tiny incident triggers a crisis. Then they say: “I’ve had enough, I don’t want this anymore.” Some commit suicide. Others get divorced. Some go to poor parts of Africa to try to save the world. But I know myself. I know that my only reaction will be to repress my feelings until a cancer starts eating me up inside. Because I do actually believe that many illnesses are the result of repressed emotions.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Nothing beats that moment of revelation when shyness loses ground to boldness, and quiet moans turn into squeals and swearing.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I only started to get better once I accepted that I had a problem.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I can’t control myself, that’s my problem.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I feel like saying: Yes, I did something I shouldn’t have done and yet I don’t feel the tiniest bit guilty, just afraid of being found out.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
And yet we feel obliged to repress our emotions and our desires, because they don’t fit with what we call “maturity.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
tormented souls have this incredible ability to recognize and approach one another, thus compounding their grief.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
In Eternity, we don’t exist; we are just an instrument of the Hand that created the mountains, the snow, the lakes, and the sun.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
We should live each and every day with the certainty that this armor will protect us from danger, and then we will no longer be bound to the duality of existence. We have to find a middle path, where there is neither joy nor suffering, only profound peace.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
mouse was always depressed because he was afraid of cats. A great wizard took pity on him and turned him into a cat. Then he started to be afraid of dogs, and so the wizard turned him into a dog. Then he began to fear tigers. The wizard, who was very patient, used his powers to turn him into a tiger. Then he was afraid of hunters. Finally, the wizard gave up and turned him back into a mouse, saying: “Nothing I do will help you, because you never understood your growth. You are better being what you always were.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Everything we seek so enthusiastically before we reach adulthood— love, work, faith— turns into a burden too heavy to bear. There is only one way to escape this: love. To love is to transform slavery into freedom. But right now, I can’t love. I just feel hate.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Some people say that, as summer approaches, we start to have weird ideas; we feel smaller because we spend more time out in the open air, and that makes us aware of how large the world is. The horizon seems farther away, beyond the clouds and the walls of our house.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Why exactly do you go to yoga classes? You’re such a calm, well-balanced person, and a woman who knows what she wants. Aren’t you wasting your time?” My heart starts beating again. I don’t answer. I simply smile and stroke his face.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Optimism is contagious, he states. If that were the case, all your would have to do is go to the person you loved with a huge grin, full of plans and ideas, and know how to present the package. Does it work? No. What is really contagious is fear, the constant fear of never finding someone to accompany us to the end of our days. And in the name of this fear we are capable of doing anything, including accepting the wrong person and convincing ourselves that he or she's the one, the only one, who God has placed in our path. In very little time the search for security turns into a heartfelt love, and things become less bitter and difficult. Our feelings can be put in a box and pushed to the back of the closet in our head, where it will remain forever, hidden and invisible.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
It’s thrilling to fight for a love that’s entirely unrequited.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
There’s something very wrong with this world, and it isn’t just the wars going on in Asia or the Middle East.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Perhaps it’s the return of Saturn. Every twenty-nine years the planet returns to the same point in the sky that it occupied at the moment of our birth.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
You may be mentally exhausted, convinced that your nonexistent problems—problems you know are nonexistent—are draining you of all your energy.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
we feel obliged to repress our emotions and our desires, because they don’t fit with what we call “maturity.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
if Evil exists, it’s to be found in our fears?
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I ask all those who hope to one day work for the good of humanity: never forget that even if you deliver up your body to be burned, you gain nothing if you have not Love. Nothing!
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
It’s thrilling to fight for a love that’s entirely unrequited. It might not be much fun. It might leave profound and lasting scars. But it’s interesting—especially for a person who, for years now, has been afraid of taking risks and who has begun to be terrified by the possibility that things might change without her being able to control them. I’m not going to repress my feelings any longer. This challenge is my salvation.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
you worked so hard to achieve.’ It blinds us to everything else, to the moments we’ve joyfully experienced, to happy times and the bonds created during those occasions. How is it that hatred
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
suddenly, for no reason, I get into the shower and burst into tears. I can cry there because no one can hear my sobs or ask me the question I hate most: “Are you all right?” Yes, why shouldn’t I be? Is there anything wrong with my life? No, nothing. Only the nights that fill me with dread. The days I can’t get excited about. The happy images from the past and the things that could have been but weren’t. The desire for adventure never fulfilled.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
We aren't who we want to be. We are what society demands. We are what our parents choose. We don't want to disappoint anyone; we have a great need to be loved. So we smother the best in us. Gradually, the light of our dreams turns into the monster of our nightmares. They become things not done, possibilities not lived.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
My sadness has become so routine that no one notices anymore. It’s really good to finally talk about it, but what I have to say runs deeper than that false happiness. I don’t sleep properly anymore. I feel I’m just being self-obsessed, trying to impress people as if I were a child. I cry alone in the shower for no reason. I’ve
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Nothing happens without effort. You have to have faith. And for that, you have to break down the barriers of prejudice, which requires courage. To have courage, you must conquer your fears. And so on and so forth. Let’s make peace with our days. We can’t forget that life is on our side. It also wants to get better. Let’s help it out!
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Every day we’re bombarded with information and images—with adolescents in heavy makeup pretending to be grown women as they advertise miraculous creams promising eternal beauty; with the story of an aging couple who climbed Mount Everest to celebrate their wedding anniversary; with new massage gizmos, and pharmacy windows that are chockablock with slimming products; with movies that give an entirely false impression of reality, and books promising fantastic results; with specialists who give advice about how to succeed in life or find inner peace. And all these things make us feel old, make us feel that we’re leading dull, unadventurous lives as our skin grows ever more flaccid, and the pounds pile on irrevocably. And yet we feel obliged to repress our emotions and our desires, because they don’t fit with what we call “maturity.” Choose what information you listen to. Place a filter over your eyes and ears and allow in only things that won’t bring you down, because we have our day-to-day life to do that.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
People might be angry, stressed, or grieving over a broken heart—and in the latter case, they might think they’re depressed and in need of medicines and drugs—but they’re not. They’re just suffering from a broken heart, and there have been broken hearts ever since the world began, ever since man discovered that mysterious thing called Love.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
May it always be clear that only True Love can compete with any other Love in this world. When we give everything, we have nothing more to lose. And then fear, jealousy, boredom, and monotony disappear, and all that remains is the light from a void that does not frighten us, but brings us closer to one another. The light that always changes, and that is what makes it beautiful and full of surprises—not always those we hope for, but those we can live with.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Let yourself get carried away by the night from time to time. Look up at the stars and try to get drunk on the sense of infinity. The night, with all its charms, is also a path to enlightenment. Just as a dark well has thirst-quenching water at its bottom, the night, whose mystery brings us closer to the mystery of God, has a flame capable of enkindling our soul hidden in its shadows.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
the world has stopped. Not just my world, but the world of everyone around me. When we meet with friends, we always talk about the same things and the same people. The conversations seem new, but it’s all just a waste of time and energy. We’re trying to prove that life is still interesting.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
When night comes and no one is watching, I feel afraid of everything: life, death, love or the lack of it; the fact that all novelties quickly become habits; the feeling that I’m wasting the best years of my life in a pattern that will be repeated over and over until I die; and sheer panic at facing the unknown, however exciting and adventurous that might be.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
The second concerns the dangerous event of change, whether it’s our house, job, or behavior. Here, everything is stable, everyone behaves as expected. Please don’t try to be different or suddenly reinvent yourself, because you’ll be threatening our whole society. This country worked hard to reach its “finished” state; we don’t want to go back to being “under renovation.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn’t know why life is being unfair to it. But we still wake up in the morning and take care of our children, our husband, our lover, our boss, our employees, our students, those dozens of people who make an ordinary day come to life. And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
What is really contagious is fear, the constant fear of never finding someone to accompany us to the end of our days. And in the name of this fear we are capable of doing anything, including accepting the wrong person and convincing ourselves that he or she’s the one, the only one, who God has placed in our path. In very little time the search for security turns into a heartfelt love, and things become less bitter and difficult. Our feelings can be put in a box and pushed to the back of the closet in our head, where it will remain forever, hidden and invisible.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Choose what information you listen to. Place a filter over your eyes and ears and only allow in things that won’t bring you down, because we have our day-to-day life to do that. Do you think I don’t get judged and criticized at work? Well, I do—a lot! But I’ve decided to hear only the things that encourage me to improve, the things that help me correct my mistakes. Otherwise, I will just pretend I can’t hear the other stuff or block it out.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
Once a year, the inhabitants shut themselves up in their houses, made two lists, turned to face the highest mountain and then raised their first list to the heavens. '“Here, Lord, are all the sins I have committed against you,” they said, reading the account of all the sins they had committed. Business swindles, adulteries, injustices, things of that sort. “I have sinned and beg forgiveness for having offended You so greatly.” 'Then - and here lay Ahab's originality - the residents immediately pulled the second list out of their pocket and, still facing the same mountain, they held that one up to the skies too. And they said something like: “And here, Lord, is a list of all Your sins against me: You made me work harder than necessary, my daughter fell ill despite all my prayers, I as robbed when I was trying to be honest, I suffered more than was fair.” After reading out the second list, they ended the ritual I have been unjust towards You and You have been towards me. However, since today is the Day of Atonement, You will forget my faults and I will forget Yours and we can carry on together for another year.
Paulo Coelho (The Devil and Miss Prym)
During the ice age, many animals died of cold, so the porcupines decided to band together to provide one another with warmth and protection. But their spines or quills kept sticking into their surrounding companions, precisely those who provided most warmth. And so they drifted apart again. And again many of them died of cold. They had to make a choice: either risk extinction or accept their fellow porcupines’ spines. Very wisely, they decided to huddle together again. They learned to live with the minor wounds inflicted by their relatives, because the key to their survival was that shared warmth.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)
I do understand. Every day we’re bombarded with information and images—with adolescents in heavy makeup pretending to be grown women as they advertise miraculous creams promising eternal beauty; with the story of an aging couple who climbed Mount Everest to celebrate their wedding anniversary; with new massage gizmos, and pharmacy windows that are chockablock with slimming products; with movies that give an entirely false impression of reality, and books promising fantastic results; with specialists who give advice about how to succeed in life or find inner peace. And all these things make us feel old, make us feel that we’re leading dull, unadventurous lives as our skin grows ever more flaccid, and the pounds pile on irrevocably. And yet we feel obliged to repress our emotions and our desires, because they don’t fit with what we call “maturity.” Choose what information you listen to. Place a filter over your eyes and ears and allow in only things that won’t bring you down, because we have our day-to-day life to do that. Do you think I don’t get judged and criticized at work? Well, I do—a lot! But I’ve decided to hear only the things that encourage me to improve, the things that help me correct my mistakes. Otherwise, I will just pretend I can’t hear the other stuff or block it out.
Paulo Coelho (Adultery)