Paulo Coelho, b. 1947, Brasilian

   ~~~ From "The Alchemist" ~~~

   That was what made traveling appeal to him - he always made new friends, and he didn't need to spend all of his time with them. When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him..., they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

   ~~~

"What is the world's greatest lie?", the boy asked, completely surprised.
"It's this: that at a certain poing in our lives we lose control of what is happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie."
"That's never happened to me," the boy said. "They wanted me to be a priest, but I decided to be a shepherd."

   ~~~

   Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there.

   ~~~

   That's what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too. ... It's not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it's not love to see everything from a distance... Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. I thought the Soul of the World was perfect. But later, I could see that it was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse. And that's where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.

    ~~~ From "By the Rive Piedra I Sat Down and Wept" ~~~

   True love is an act of total surrender.

   ~~~

   That is why I write - to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance.