En esta vida lo único que sienta cátedra es el prejuicio.

I can’t die yet, doctor. Not yet. I have things to do. Afterwords I’ll have a whole lifetime in which to die.

You don’t know what thirst is until you drink for the first time.

I’ve always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don’t have a brain.

Pocas cosas engañan más que los recuerdos.

Our world will not die as the result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, or making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that.

I am a curious creature and put my finger in as many cakes as I can: history, film, technology, etc. I’m also a freak for urban history, particularly Barcelona, Paris and New York. I know...

History is biology’s dumping ground

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...

I don’t suppose you have many friends. Neither do I. I don’t trust people who say they have a lot of friends. It’s a sure sign that they don’t really know anyone.

I lent my ear to the patient’s lips – so close that I could feel his fetid, warm breath on my skin. “Can you tell me where I can find Señora Jucinta Coronado?” I asked...

In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom.

Jorge siempre viviría a la sombra de su privilegio, entre algodones y fracasos. Penélope, la preciosa Penélope, era mujer y por tanto tesoro, no tesorero. Julián, que tenía alma de poeta, y por tanto de...

Everyone wanted to see [him] fall so they could devour his remains. As is usually the case, the army of sycophants had turned into a horde of hungry hyenas

I realised that I had always been writing things that other people wanted me to write and not what I really wanted to write, so I felt like I was losing my way.

There are few reasons for telling the truth, but for lying the number is infinite.

This place is a mystery. A sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it & the soul of those who read it & lived it...

Making money isn’t hard in itself… What’s hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one’s life to.

The city was asleep, and the bookshop felt like a boat adrift in a sea of silence and shadows.

All I know is that once Julián told the kids in the building that he had a sister only he could see. He said she came out of mirrors as if she were made of...

Mention the gothic, and many readers will probably picture gloomy castles and an assortment of sinister Victoriana. However, the truth is that the gothic genre has continued to flourish and evolve since the days of...

La vida, esa reina de las putas.

If there is a god, or hundreds of them, I hope they will forgive me for the harm I may have inflicted on you by telling you exactly what happened.

Uno no sabe lo que es la vida hasta que desnuda por primera vez a una mujer. Botón a botón, como si pelase usted un boniato bien calentito en una noche de invierno.

Making money isn’t hard in itself,’ he complained. ‘What’s hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one’s life to.

Man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other prupose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species.

I believe that nothing happens by chance. Deep down, things have their secret plan, even though we don’t understand it.

My childhood was surrounded by books and writing. From a very early age I was fascinated by storytelling, by the printed word, by language, by ideas. So I would seek them out.

1My father says a hunch is your brain’s way of taking a short cut to the truth,’ replied Max.‘He’s a wise man, your father. What else does he say?’‘That the more you try to hide...

One loves truly only once in a lifetime, Julian, even if one isn’t aware of it.

Recorrí pasillos y galerías en espiral pobladas por cientos, miles de tomos que parecían saber más acerca de mí que yo de ellos. Al poco, me asaltó la idea de que tras la cubierta de...

The night I met him [he] told me that, for some reason, life usually grants us what we are not looking for. He was given wealth, fame, and power, yet his soul yearned only for...

But if you like, you can come share a tasty meal of bread, raisins, and fresh Burgos cheese. With that, and The Count of Monte Cristo, anyone can live to a hundred.

Se enfrenta usted al enigma de la naturaleza, Daniel. La fémina, babel y laberinto. Si la deja usted pensar, está perdido. Recuerde: corazón caliente, mente fría. El código del seductor.

Inspiration comes when you stick your elbows on the table, your bottom on the chair and you start sweating. Choose a theme, an idea, and squeeze your brain until it hurts. That’s called inspiration.

Esta vida vale la pena vivirla por tres o cuatro cosas, y lo demás es abono para el campo.

We are willing to believe anything other than the truth.

I had never known the pleasure of reading, of exploring the recesses of the soul, of letting myself be carried away by imagination, beauty, and the mystery of fiction and language. For me all those...

Do you think it’s dirty money?-All money is dirty. If it were clean nobody would want it.

Jacinta nunca le dijo a Penélope que la quería. El aya sabía que quien quiere de verdad quiere en silencio, con hechos y nunca con palabras.

Everything in life is nonsense. It’s just a question of perspective.

When ‘The Shadow of the Wind’ became a success I had already been a working writer, I’d been through the ups and downs, I’d seen how it worked.

El tiempo pasa más aprisa cuanto más vacío está. Las vidas sin significado pasan de largo como trenes que no paran en su estación.

Time has taught me not to lose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either.

—Hazme lo que quieras —susurró. Tenía diecisiete años y la vida en los labios.

En contra de lo que usted cree a pies juntillas, el universo no gira en torno a las apetencias de su entrepierna. Otros factores influyen en el devenir de la humanidad.

The day I charge an unbeliever like you for the word of God will be the day I’m struck dead by lightning, and with good reason.

Some disappointments honor those who inspire them

I’m a voracious reader, and I like to explore all sorts of writing without prejudice and without paying any attention to labels, conventions or silly critical fads.

Ein Geheimnis ist soviel wert wie der der es uns anvertraut.