“Barcelona is a very old city in which you can feel the weight of history it is haunted by history. You cannot walk around it without perceiving it.”

“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.”

“The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is a metaphor, not just for books but for ideas, for language, for knowledge, for beauty, for all the things that make us human, for collecting memory.”

“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 ...”

“that as long as we are being remembered, we remain alive.”

“We are willing to believe anything other than the truth.”

“Llarimar had told him to do his best. That sounded like an awful lot of work. Unfortunately, doing nothing was beginning to seem like even MORE work.”

“In his opinion, working was vastly overrated. Particularly as a way to build character, for everyone who engaged in it was far too snappish and fussy, and seemed to have no manners at all.”

“There was a sergeant at a desk. I knew he was a sergeant because I recognized the marks on his uniform, and I knew it was a desk because it's always a desk. There's always someone at a desk, except...”

“Hating yourself is like hating the sun. No matter how much you complain of it agitating your eyes, its brilliance shines on.”

“It is in the darkest hour, when we are faced with our deepest most wrenching fears, that we are given the greatest strength. The choice is whether we succumb to the fear or rise with courage to fac...”

“In order to share one's true brilliance one initially has to risk looking like a fool: genius is like a wheel that spins so fast, it at first glance appears to be sitting still.”

“Lucian's father had warned him to fear idle men. Without the pride gained from a good day's work, they were left to their vices and the doubts that crowded their head. Their hatred. Their envy.”

“She was wearing her fuzzy pink hat and she was happy, which was so obnoxious. She'd become one of those people who waltzed through life without so much as a split end, and I was still one of those ...”

“We may be just a drop in the ocean, but even the ocean envies the depth of our love.”