The Alchemist

I just finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It was recommended to me by one of my mission companions, and so I borrowed a copy and read it this week, knowing that I would have a little extra time before the semester got too busy. It is about a boy who has a dream and goes on a journey to fulfill it. He meets an old man who introduces himself as a foreign King. The wise king tells him that when someone really wants something, all the universe comes together to help that person realize their personal legend. A personal legend is a desire rooted so deeply within the individual that the fulfillment of the personal legend is the purpose and reason for their existence. The boy follows his dream to fulfill his personal legend only to find that his personal legend leads him to where he began.

As he gets closer to his Personal Legend, he meets the alchemist, who teaches the boy that everyone has a personal legend, but not everyone listens to their heart in order to discover what it is. A child will always listen to their heart and has a clear vision of their dream, but somewhere along the way of growing into adulthood, most lose that vision. People grow old and live ordinary lives, but never fulfill their personal legends. If one reaches that state it is dangerous to begin to listen to their heart again because it will only cause pain knowing what one has missed.

Fortunately the boy listens to his heart and learns the universal language that teaches him all things. He fulfills his personal legend, which leads him through many hard trials. At the end he asks God why it couldn’t have been easier, and God responds saying that if it had been easier it wouldn’t have been so beautiful.

I loved this book.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his of her own.” pg. 16

“What is the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked.
“It’s this: that 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.” pg. 18

“Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth.” – The King of Salem pg. 22

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” The King pg. 22

“People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.” –The King pg. 22

“When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.” pg. 27

“When you really want something, the universe always conspires in your favor.” pg. 36

“I’m like everyone else – I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does,” –The boy pg. 40

“Today, I understand something I didn’t see before; every blessing ignored becomes a curse,” – The old man pg. 58

“Never stop dreaming.” –The King pg. 62

“He had worked for an entire year to make a dream come true, and that dream, minute by minute was becoming less important. Maybe because that wasn’t really his dream.” pg. 64

“Making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.” pg. 68

“The closer one gets to realizing his Personal Legend, the more that Personal Legend becomes his true reason for being.” pg. 72

“Everyone has his or her own way of learning things.” –The boy pg. 84

“He learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke – the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love.” pg. 92

“Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.” pg. 93

“He had loved her before he even knew she existed. He knew that his love for her would enable him to discover every treasure in the world.” pg. 94

“If I am really a part of your dream, you’ll come back one day.” Fatima, the girl the boy loved pg. 97

“Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World.” pg. 111

“Wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. You’ve got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense.” pg. 116

“You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his Personal Legend. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love… the love that speaks the Language of the World.” – The Alchemist pg. 120

“I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.” –The boy to Fatima pg. 122

“My heart is a traitor,” the boy said. “It doesn’t want me to go on.”
“That makes sense,” the alchemist answered. “Naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.” -pg. 129

“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse that the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.” –pg. 130

“Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits them,” his heart said. “We, people’s hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them… unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them – the path to their Personal Legend, and to happiness.” pg. 131

“Don’t give into your fears,” said the alchemist. “If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart… If a person is living out his Personal Legend, he knows everything he needs to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” pg. 141

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” – The Alchemist pg. 150

“No matter what he does, every person earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.” - The Alchemist pg. 159

“On the way towards realizing his own Personal Legend, he learned all he needed to know, and had experienced everything he needed to know… now he knew where his treasure was.” pg. 160 and 163

“Each time he knelt by [me], I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.”
“What a lovely story,” the alchemist thought. pg. x