Hey y’all! What’s poppin? So of course I’m back with another book review. Sorry it took two years—ya girl been livin’…Anyway, let’s get right into it:

So, of course, I have to start y’all off right! Here’s my favorite quotes from the book, The Zahir:

“It wasn’t an affair… it came about simply because it had been a dull day. Neither of us had any pressing engagements after lunch and the game of seduction always adds a little zest to your life.”

[freedom] “It has left scars on my body and in my soul.”

“I know that freedom has a high price. As high as that of slavery. The only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile…even when that smile is dimmed with tears.”

“When someone leaves it is because someone else is about to arrive.”

“The more beautiful everything is around me, the more wretched I feel.”

“Women are always looking for stability and fidelity..”

“What is love?” 

“…to allow an ocean to separate me from Esther’s body…” 

“I have a dreamless night’s sleep” 

“The woman who made me say yes when I wanted to say no. Who forced me to fight for what she, quite rightly, believed was my reason for living. Who let me set off alone because her love for me was greater than even her love for herself.” 

“Who could love someone without humbling herself” 

“Lessons always arrive when you are ready” 

“They strive to be original but succeed only in being dull” 

“That’s what’s happened with all of the geniuses of the past: Being misunderstood is surely just part and parcel of being a great artist.”

“Because this world is made up of contacts and nothing else”

“I learn…I suffer..”

“ in order to be able to find her I first had to find myself”

“The politician wanted to be a writer. The writer wanted to be a farmer”

“& yet nowadays people wear it around their neck as a religious symbol, forgetting that they are looking at an instrument of torture.”

“ distance only made our love grow stronger”

“What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over”

“As a man… abandoned”

[The Zahir] “This can be considered as a state of holiness or state of madness”

“Marie pretended not to know what was going on in my soul, and I pretended not to know what was going on in hers”

“I had lived my dream intensely while it lasted. I could spend the rest of my life having fun.”

“We are all cathedrals”

“I am pleased she exists. She has shown me that I am capable of a love, of which I myself know nothing.”

“As if people could live without love.”

“When people praise us, we should always keep a close eye on how we behave.”

“I don’t believe in the curative powers of suffering and tragedy”

“Don’t be too grateful too soon…our relationship isn’t strong enough” 

“The energy of hatred won’t get you anywhere, but the energy of forgiveness which reveals itself through love will transform your life in a positive way”

“Show some respect for your time here on this earth.”

“I find myself through my readers. I understand what I wrote when I see that other understand it too.”

“Silence falls, after all tragedies get in the way of celebrations.”

“I think everyone born in my country feels what the land felt, because every person carries his land in his blood.”

“Absolute freedom doesn’t exist, what does exist is the freedom to choose anything you like and then commit yourself to that decision.”

“When I had nothing more to lose I was given everything. When I ceased to be who I am I found myself.”

“But in love there is neither good or evil. There is neither construction or destruction. There is merely movement, and love changes the laws of nature.”

“Two impossibilities who have found each other, and because they have overcome their own natures and their barriers, they make the world possible too.” 

“There is always something missing.”

“The world will became real when man learn how to love. Until then we will live in the belief that we know what love is but we will always lack the courage to confront it as it truly is.”

“If he has trusted more in the love of the woman, he would have not felt humiliated.” 

“Love is the only thing that activates our intelligence and our creativity, and purifies and liberates us.”

“God passed through my soul” 

“Now I love her in a more silent way”

“War is a ritual” 

“It would harm me more to be living a life without meaning.”

“I’m a person with a mission.”

“& the world would be a better place because one’s soul is content.”

“The man hasn’t yet been born who can tell me where I can, and cannot go.”

“If there is suffering, then his best to accept it because it won’t go away… if there is joy, then it’s best to accept it too even though you’re afraid it might end one day.”

“His favorite past times are shooting birds and seducing women.”

“I blame her for provoking in my feelings that make my world seem unsafe.” 

“But I’d never dare say as much,  it even to myself”

“Be sensible”

“ They still think that the promise to live happily ever after must be kept, even at the cost of daily unhappiness.”

“Where love stops creating problems and confrontations and becomes merely a solution.”

“He died while he was still alive”

“I was always looking for myself in the women I love.”

“Religion was merely invented to fool the people”

“& that he is being rewarded now for all his sufferings on earth.” 

“Who told you that the mountain is necessarily better than the plain?”

“Have your past loves taught you to love better? They taught me to know what I want.. I didn’t ask that. Have your past loves taught you to love your husband better? No, only the contrary. In order to surrender myself to him, I had to forget the other scars left by other men.”

“As we empty our minds to old stories, a new space opens up. A mysterious feeling of joy slips in. Our intuitions grow sharper. We become braver, take more risks. We do things that might be right or wrong… we can’t be sure but we do them anyway.”

“Don’t expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood.”

“Stop being who you were and become who you are.” 

“Technique with intuition. Discipline with love”

“The story needs to reach its end.”

“Everything in life has its price—as you know better than anyone, and information is one of the most expensive products in the world.”

“I was once more becoming a legend.” 

“The invisible world always manifests itself in the visible world.” 

“The moment that the Mexicans call the accommodador—the giving up point”

“In my story, love was something that grew until it reached a certain size, and from then on it was just a matter of keeping it alive. Like a plant.” 

“The taste of things recovered is the sweetest honey we will ever know.”

“And I looked back at the trail left by my footprints, and I couldn’t see you. I suffers greatly. I realized that I’d set off on a path of no return, and when one does that, one can only go forward.”

“The more I freed myself from facts and concentrated on emotions, the more I would come to realize that in the present there is always a space as vast as the steps waiting to be filled up with more love and with more of life’s joy.”

Now let’s get into the actual review.

So honestly, this review is going to be short because I really don’t have much to say about this book. The book The Zahir is about a man whose wife left him. It started off good, and inspiring, and full of many good quotes, all setting me up for success. Then, somehow we got lost in the journey.

I think Coelho is a little obsessed with personal journey, but after The Alchemist and Eleven Minutes, it gets old and pretentious.

I am, however, fascinated with the idea of the zahir,

an Islamic phenomenon that speaks to when something has taken over your focus, all your attention, and eventually…your soul. To me, this was the most intriguing part of the book, because it was relatable and definitely something we don’t talk about. We when are in love alone, we suffer in silence for fear of being ridiculed or rejected. Yet, we’ve all been there. This phenomenon was brought up in the height of my own zahir, allowing me to make sense of my thought and emotions (which is why I love stories).

Overall the book is about a man on a self-reflection journey back to himself, first, then back to his wife. I give this book 5/10.

caio, until next time! xo