The Alchemist by: Paulo Coelho

This book was recommended to me by a few of my friends and described as life changing. Therefore, I had to check it out myself.

Overall feeling about the book is that it reminds me a lot of what I am currently learning in my philosophy class. A lot about living in the present. It is a quick read and easy to follow along; an uplifting, good-feeling book.

I did highlight a few things from the book:

"If he can understand my story, then he's never too far from me."

"The heat lasted until nightfall, and all that time he had to carry his jacket. But when he thought to complain about the burden of its weight, he remembered that, because he had the jacket, he had withstood the cold of dawn.

"We have to be prepared for change,..."

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting..."

"It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary;..."

"At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie."

"Don't forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else."

"The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon."

"But now I'm sad and alone. I'm going to become bitter and distrustful of people because one person betrayed me. I'm going to hate those who have found their treasure because I never found mine. And I'm gong to hold on to what little I have, because I'm too insignificant to conquer the world."

"This wasn't a strange place; it was a new one."

"All things are one."

"I'm afraid that if my dream is realized, I'll have no reason to go on living."

"Not everyone can see his dreams come true in the same way."

"It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, as as par of a search for something believed in and desired."

"... making a decision was only the beginning of things."

"The closer one gets to realizing his Personal Legend, the more that Personal Legend becomes his true reason for being."

"... intuition is really a sudden immersion for the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there."

"... when you can't go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward."

"I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man."

"Because people become fascinated with pictures and words, and wind up forgetting the Language of the World."

"And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better."

"You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Persona Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love... the love that speaks the Language of the World."

"Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there."

"You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you'll never have to fear an unanticipated blow."

"People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them."

"... the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself."

"Most people see he world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place."

"Don't give in to your fears, if you do you won't be able to talk to your heart."

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."