The Zahir

love...love...love... this book is all about love, the philosophy of love, the practice of love, the search of love, the madness of love, the pilgrimage of love, the incredible force of love, the loss of love, longing and  obsession... if you ever were in love, you would be fascinated by this novel... it is first-person narrative, and seems autobiographical... where the main character is searching for his missing wife, and to find her he needs to re-examine all their life together, to understand all the mistakes he has made, in order to find out why she left and how to convince her to come back to him... the journey to love goes from paris to kazakhstan, during which the narrator understands the meaning of love and life...

The Zahir, a term derived from the Arabic culture, is a recurring thought that the mind can't stop thinking about, the obsession. It is the obsessive fear for the loss of a loved one, the vacuum left in the heart of a person from a sudden mourning; the spiral of feelings, emotions and baggage of memories that inevitably are brought back to the mind of a person at any time by the words, the places and shared experience. The feeling of being in a dead end evokes in an individual. The Zahir can be solved only with the attainment of peace restored after the reunion, or rather, the state of rest, as a condition of constant awareness of the impossibility to reach the aim, the solution of the problem. - Wikipedia

the best phrases from The Zahir by Paolo Coelho:

• “When someone leaves, it's because someone else is about to arrive. - I'll find love again.”

• “All you have to do is to pay attention; lessons always arrive when you are ready, and if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step” 

• “That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don't expect to get anything back, don't expect recognition for your efforts, don't expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.”

• “Free again, but it's just a feeling; freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit yourself to what is best for you.”

• “The most important thing in human relationship is conversation. But people don't talk anymore, they don't sit down to talk and listen.They go to theatre, the cinema, watch television, listen to the radio, read books, but they almost never talk.” 

• “Fanaticism is the only way to put an end to the doubts that constantly trouble the human soul.”

• “In the words of a Persian sage: Love is a disease no one wants to get rid of. Those who catch it never try to get better, and those who suffer do not wish to be cured.”

• “I hate knowing about illness. Whenever I read a medical book, I immediately start to get all the symptoms.” 

• “Age only slows down those who never had the courage to walk at their own pace.”

• “As Einstein said, God does not play dice with the universe; everything is interconnected and has a meaning. That meaning may remain hidden nearly all the time, but we always know we are close to our true mission on earth when what we are doing is touched with the energy of enthusiasm.”