We had yet to learn that the Devil created youth so that we could make our mistakes, and that God established maturity and old age so that we could pay for them.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonRead
Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Destiny requires active pursuit; it will not come to you.
This quote by Carlos Ruiz Zafón suggests that destiny is always near, represented by various figures that symbolize chance and opportunity. However, it emphasizes that achieving one's destiny requires action and initiative, as destiny will not simply present itself without effort.
Themes
DestinyPursuitActionOpportunityEffort
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech encouraging students to take risks in their career paths.
More from Carlos Ruiz Zafon
All quotes →The haunting of history is ever present in Barcelona. I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me, Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonRead
I think today will be the day. Today our luck will change,' I proclaimed on the wings of the first coffee of the day, pure optimism in a liquid state.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonRead
We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonRead
Destiny doesn't do home visits... you have to go for it yourself.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonRead
All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonRead
Similar quotes
Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools: they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation, and let father Time shake his glass.
William CongreveRead
Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.
Martha GellhornRead
No morn ever dawned more favorable than ours did; and no day was every more clouded than the present! Wisdom, and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm.
George WashingtonRead
When I try to be patient on my own, my patience is forced and short-lived. It is obvious to everyone that I am desperately trying to be patient.
Mother AngelicaRead
We're receiving information from all the planes of our consciousness all the time, but we don't acknowledge their existence; we treat the information as static, as noise.
Ram DassRead
These teachings are like a raft, to be abandoned once you have crossed the flood. Since you should abandon even good states of mind generated by these teachings, How much more so should you abandon bad states of mind!
Gautama BuddhaRead