Paulo Coelho was born in Brazil in 1947 and reborn as a writer in 1982. Presently, he is one of the most famous spiritual writer, and his own life, ebbing between introversion and protests against leading a restricted traditional life, has the capability to inspire anyone to dream.

As a reader, I found Paulo Coelho’s books literally choked with pearls of wisdom, almost every other word he writes, deserves to be called so. A few of my favorites from his books and interviews are:

The Alchemist

1. Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

2. When you really want something, the universe always conspires in your favor.

3. Dreams are the language of God.

4. At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.

5. If you start out by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work toward getting it.

6. Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him.

7. One dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.

8. When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.

The Valkyries

1. The rivers return to the mountains, but carry with them the wisdom of the sea.

2. People always kill the things they love.

3. Advice not heeded is returned to its giver, losing its energy.

4. Love comes to rest only when we are close to death.

5. One of nature’s most important laws: Every movement needs to pause at times.

6. The nymphs at Wotan’s Palace. Messengers of the gods, they led heroes to their death, and then to paradise.

7. People are always respectful of those who speak of things no one understands.

8. A carefully elaborate ritual that the person tries to perform precisely, because he or she is afraid that- if any part is left out- everything will go wrong. The name of that ritual is Routine.

9. Faith is a difficult conquest, and it requires daily combat in order to be maintained.

10. When God wants to drive a person insane, he grants that person’s every wish.

Confessions of A Pilgrim

1. Yes, I am a Magus, but so is everyone, who knows how to read the hidden language of things in pursuit of their personal destiny.

2. Omens are an alphabet you develop to talk to the world’s soul.

3. Humanity’s greatest sin is non-communication, unwanted and unloved solitude, forgetting that we were created to find each other, to be each other’s mirrors.

4. Forgiving is always in some way to feel yourself superior, humiliate the one you are forgiving.

5. Trying to impose a faith is the best way to make you rebel and go over to the other side.

6. For inspiration, I have to make love with life.

7. To put an end to darkness, it is enough to turn on a light, because you can’t light the darkness.

8. You don’t light a lamp to put it behind a door but to light up the house.

9. Courage is the fear that causes prayer.

10. A man with values is a man with fears who doesn’t let himself be intimidated by them.

11. I write for the child we have inside.

12. Love is a kind of magic, a nuclear force that can help you realize yourself or destroy you.

13. Love is at the same time the most productive and the most destructive force in the world.

14. Crises are always good because they are the points at which you have to make a decision.

15. It’s not true that drugs are horrible, as they say in the campaigns. Drugs are bad because they are fantastic.