Paulo's Points

The Devil and Miss Prym
novel of temptation
by Paulo Coelho

Synopsis:

A community devoured by greed, cowardice and fear. A man persecuted by the ghosts of his painful past. A young woman searching for happiness. In one eventful week, each of them will face questions of life, death and power, and each of them will have to choose their own path. Will they choose good or evil?


Paulo's Points

~ Those who make promises they don’t keep end up powerless and frustrated.

~ She had just realized there were two things that prevent us from achieving our dreams: believing them to be impossible or seeing those dreams made possible by some sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, when you least expected it. For that moment, all our fears suddenly surface: the fear of setting off along a road heading who knows where, the fear of a life full of new challenges, the fear of losing forever everything that’s familiar.

~ Good and Evil have the same face; it all depends on when they cross the path of each individual human being.

~ They were so ignorant, so naïve, so resigned to their lot. They refused to believe anything that didn’t fit in with what they were used to believing. They all lived in fear of God.

~ It is always for easier to have faith in your own goodness than to control others and fight for your rights. it is always easier to hear an insult and not retaliate than have the courage to fight back against someone stronger than yourself; we can always say we’re not hurt by the stones others throw at us, and it’s only at night-when we’re alone and our wife or our husband or our school friend is asleep-that we can silently grieve over our own cowardice.

~ Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.

~ Even God has a hell: his love of mankind.

~ Each person’s destiny is preordained. Tragedy always happens, and nothing we do can alter by one jot the evil that awaits us.

~ …if we take this tale to its logical conclusion, our real enemy is God for putting us through everything we’ve suffered-we went our frustrations on everything around us. It’s a desire for vengeance that can never be satisfied, because it’s directed against life itself.

~ Human beings love to load themselves down with fear and guilt in everyday of their lives.

~ Evil needs to manifest itself and fulfill its role, so that ultimately Good could prevail.

~ If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid.

~ You were in paradise, but you didn’t recognize it. It’s the same with most people in this world, they seek suffering in the most joyous of places because they think they are unworthy of happiness.

~ Gold itself is absolutely none.

~ The story of one person is the story of all.

~ It is very dangerous to believe in other people.

~ It was all a matter of control. And choice.