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31 Times Paulo Coelho Understood The Agony Of Love And Heartbreak

My heart might be bruised, but it will recover and become capable of seeing beauty. 
Kirsten Corley
August 30, 2016
“Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.”
— Paulo Coelho, By The River Pedra I Sat Down And Wept
Tagged: Waiting, Forgetting, Moving On, Limbo, Suffering, Pain
“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Tagged: Life, Challenge, Overcoming Adversity, Change, Failure, Bouncing Back, Resilience, strength
“If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. ”
— Paulo Coelho, By The River Pedra I Sat Down And Wept
Tagged: Pain, Loss, Longing, Love, Grief, Grieving, Death, Breakups, Moving On
“When someone leaves, it's because someone else is about to arrive.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Zahir
Tagged: Loss, Pain, Leaving, New Beginnings, Starting Over, Endings, Saying Goodbye, Goodbyes, Change
“Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.”
— Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
Tagged: Life, Hope, Crisis, Crises, Change, Overcoming Challenges, Pain
“Human beings can withstand a week without water, two weeks without food, many years of homelessness, but not loneliness. It is the worst of all tortures, the worst of all sufferings.”
— Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
Tagged: Loneliness, Love, Belonging, Being Alone, Pain, Grief, Loss
“Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us.””
— Paulo Coelho, By The River Pedra I Sat Down And Wept
Tagged: Love, Relationships, Life, Accepting Love, Change
“My heart might be bruised, but it will recover and become capable of seeing beauty of life once more. It's happened before, it will happen again, I'm sure.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Zahir
Tagged: Love, Pain, Loss, Grief, Breakups
“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Tagged: heart, Identity, Listening To Your Heart, Trust Yourself
“Sadness does not last forever when we walk in the direction of that which we always desired.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Fifth Mountain
Tagged: Sadness, Desire, Moving On, Moving Forward, Grief, Loss
“It's risky, falling in love."

"I know that," I answered. "I've been in love before. It's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day, you want more. You're not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. You think about the person you love for two minutes, and forget them for three hours.

"But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he's not there, you feel like an addict who can't get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you're willing to do anything for love.”
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept: A Novel of Forgiveness
Tagged: Love, Heartbreak, Letting Go
“In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.”
— Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes: A Novel (P.S.)
Tagged: Heartbreak, Love, Letting Go
“In real life, love has to be possible. Even if it is not returned right away, love can only survive when the hope exists that you will be able to win over the person you desire.”
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept: A Novel of Forgiveness
Tagged: Love, Heartbreak, Moving On
“After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello
Tagged: Heartbreak, Pain, Love
“All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that's a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.”
— Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes: A Novel (P.S.)
Tagged: Love, Heartbreak, Freedom
“Love is not a habit, a commitment, or a debt. It isn't what romantic songs tell us it is - love simply is.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello: A Novel (P.S.)
Tagged: Heartbreak, Love, real love
“If you love someone, you must be prepared to set them free.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Winner Stands Alone: A Novel (P.S.)
Tagged: Love, Set Free, Letting Go
“Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.”
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept: A Novel of Forgiveness
Tagged: Love, Relationships, Life, Loving
“We can also allow our Soulmate to pass us by,without accepting him or her,or even noticing. Then we will need another incarnation in order to find that Soulmate. And because of our selfishness, we will be condemned to the worst torture humankind ever invented for itself: loneliness.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Tagged: Love Advice, Relationships, soulmates
“When you were in love, you were capable of learning everything and of knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love was the key to understanding all of the mysteries.”
— Paulo Coelho, Brida
Tagged: Relationships, Love, Understanding
“To love is to lose control.”
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept: A Novel of Forgiveness
Tagged: Love, Relationship, Life
“But love is much like a dam; if you allow a tiny crack to form through which only a trickle of water can pass, that trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure and soon no one will be able to control the force of the current.”
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept: A Novel of Forgiveness
Tagged: Love, Dam, Control
“In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the pricesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.”
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept: A Novel of Forgiveness
Tagged: Love Story, Prince, Happily Ever After
“and that, in the end, the most interesting people always leave.”
— Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes: A Novel (P.S.)
Tagged: Leaving, Heartbreak, Letting Go
“If there is any possible consolation in the tragedy of losing someone we love very much, it's the necessary hope that perhaps it was for the best.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello: A Novel (P.S.)
Tagged: Tragedy, Love, Loss
“Love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello
Tagged: Love, Heartbreak, Holding On
“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.”
— Paulo Coelho, Aleph
Tagged: Love, Relationships, Forever Love
“We humans have two great problems: the first is knowing when to begin; the second is knowing when to stop.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Tagged: Dating Advice, Love, Relationships, Ending
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Tagged: Heart and Love, Suffer, Heartbreak
“Because true love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Tagged: Love, Happiness, Destiny