QUOTES FROM PAULO COELLO'S BOOK “ELEVEN MINUTES”
Desire is not what you see, but what you imagine.
The great goal of every human being is to realize love. Love is not in another, but in ourselves, and we awaken it in ourselves. But in order to awaken her, this other one is needed. The universe only makes sense if we have someone to share our feelings with.
All nations have a saying: “Out of sight, out of mind.” I affirm that there is nothing more false in the world. The farther from the eyes, the closer to the heart. While in exile in a foreign land, we lovingly cherish in our memory every little thing that reminds us of our homeland. Longing for separation from the one we love, we see dear features in every passerby on the street.
A lover will never hurt his beloved; Each of us is responsible for the feelings we experience, and we have no right to blame the other for this.
Losing people I've fallen in love with has hurt my soul before. Now I am convinced: no one can lose anyone, because no one belongs to anyone.
This is true freedom - to have what is most dear to you, but not to own it.
Love, indeed, like nothing else, can turn a person’s whole life upside down from time to time. But after love comes something else, which also forces a person to take a path that he had never even thought of before. This something is called "despair". And if love changes a person quickly, then despair changes even faster.
When you teach someone something, you discover something new for yourself.
Time moves differently on different days, depending on the mood.
And although my goal is to understand what love is, and although I suffer because of those to whom I gave my heart, I see clearly: those who touch my soul cannot ignite my flesh, and those who touch my flesh , powerless to comprehend my soul.
The danger lies in the fact that sometimes we deify pain, give it a human name, and think about it incessantly.
Losing people I've fallen in love with has hurt my soul before. Now I am convinced: no one can lose anyone, because no one belongs to anyone.
There are people who were born to go through life alone, this is not good or bad, this is life.
Time does not change a person, wisdom does not change a person, and the only thing that can rebuild the structure of his thoughts and feelings is love.
The great goal of every human being is to realize love. Love is not in another, but in ourselves, and we awaken it in ourselves. But in order to awaken her, this other one is needed. The universe only makes sense if we have someone to share our feelings with.
Life is too short—or too long—to have the luxury of living it so badly.
Life is a spicy, dazzling game, it’s a parachute jump, it’s a risk, you fall, but you get back on your feet, it’s what’s called “coming out of your skin,” it’s melancholy and frustration if you don’t succeed. intended.
I have a choice before me - to become a victim of this world or an adventurer who is looking for treasure, it all depends on how I myself will look at myself and my life.
- Do you know who suffers the most from loneliness? This is a man who has made a successful career, receives a huge salary, enjoys the trust of his superiors and subordinates, has a family with whom he spends his vacations, children whom he helps with homework, and one fine day someone like me appears in front of him and asks him a question: “Would you like to change services and earn twice as much?” And then the person who has everything to be loved and happy becomes the most unhappy creature. Why? Because he has no one to talk to. He is thinking about my proposal and cannot discuss it with his colleagues, because they will begin to dissuade him and convince him to stay in his previous place. He cannot share his thoughts with his wife, who has witnessed his many years of ascent; she understands what stability is, but does not understand what risk is. He can't talk to anyone, but he has to radically change his life. Do you understand how such a person must feel?
The only bad thing is that this person is so close: she feels his touch - and she likes it; she smells his cologne - and she likes it. She, it turns out, was waiting for him - but she doesn’t like this at all.
Men threaten, shout, and can beat, but everyone, without exception, goes crazy with fear of the woman. Maybe not in front of the one they took as their wife, but there will certainly be someone who will subjugate them and force them to fulfill all their whims. Sometimes it’s your own mother.
He who is capable of feeling knows that you can enjoy even if you do not touch the one you love. Both words and looks contain the mystery contained in the dance.
I met a man and fell in love with him. I allowed myself this weakness for one reason - I don’t expect anything and I don’t hope for anything...
“Sex, sex, sex” - that’s what the world revolves on, that’s what life is based on, that’s what advertising, films, books say. And no one knows what we are talking about. And everyone knows - because the instinct is stronger than all of us put together - that this must be done. Dot.
They kissed in front of everyone and, catching the indignant glances of some of the passers-by, smiled at the fact that they had caused discontent and awakened desire, because they knew that passers-by would like to follow their example but did not dare. They were outraged by this.
The most important meetings are arranged by souls, even before the bodies of the body meet.
If I am looking for true and big love, then first I need to get tired of petty feelings and random romances.
Neither wine, nor cigarettes, nor fire, nor communication is enough; another intoxication, another flame is needed.
Better live as if today is the first (or last) day of your life.
What is more important: living or pretending to live?
Most people use sex as a drug - to escape from reality, forget about their problems, relax. And, like any drug, it has harmful and destructive effects.
Children renounce their dreams in order to please their parents, parents renounce life itself in order to please their children...
People follow a regimen, wear wigs, sit for hours in beauty parlors or gyms, put on something that emphasizes their strengths and hides their figure’s flaws, they try to strike a spark - so what? Finally they go to bed, and this continues for all eleven minutes. Eleven minutes - that's all. And nothing that would lift into the heavens, and then a little more time will pass - and no spark will rekindle the extinguished flame.
My goal is to understand what love is. I know that when I loved, I felt that I was alive, and what is happening to me now may be interesting, but it is not inspiring.
... the session lasts 45 minutes, and if you subtract the time for undressing and dressing, insincere affection, exchange of platitudes, then only eleven minutes remain for pure sex.
The roles are changing. One does not exist without the other. No one can humiliate until he himself is humiliated.
The strongest love is the one that is not afraid to show weakness. Be that as it may, if this is true love (and not self-deception, not a way to get distracted or pass time, because it lasts forever in this city), then freedom will sooner or later defeat jealousy, take away the pain it causes, because pain is also in order of things. Anyone who has played sports knows: if you want to achieve results, be prepared for a daily dose of pain, for the fact that you will feel bad. At first it seems that this is completely useless, that it only brings aches in the muscles, but over time you begin to understand: no, this is part of the program, without experiencing pain and aches, you will not be able to gain lightness and strength, and then the minute comes when you feel that without pain you cannot achieve the desired result.
This always happens in movies - at the very last moment, when a woman is ready to board the plane, a man appears in complete despair and, under the ironic and sympathetic glances of airline employees, grabs her, kisses her and returns her to his world. The sign “The End” appears, and the audience disperses, confident that this couple will henceforth be invariably happy.
“In the movies they never show what happened next,” she said to herself to console herself. And then - marriage, kitchen, children, sex due to obligation, even if it is marital, but increasingly rare, and here is a note from a mistress found for the first time, and a desire to throw a scandal, and then - promises that this will never happen again, then a second note (from another woman), and again a scandal and a threat of divorce, but this time the husband does not promise anything with such certainty, but only says that he loves her. The third note (from the third woman), and after it they usually prefer to remain silent, pretend that nothing is happening, because the husband will now say that he no longer loves her and she can leave in all four directions.
They don't show anything like that in the movies. The film ends before another world begins. So it's better not to think.
When we fall in love, it seems that the whole world is at one with them; Today, at sunset, I was convinced of this. and when something goes wrong, nothing remains - no herons, no music in the distance, no taste of his lips. and where did all this beauty disappear so quickly - after all, just a few minutes ago it was still there, it surrounded us?! Life is very fast: in an instant we fall from heaven to the very underworld.
I am a naive girl who looks at a man, transfixed with admiration, and pretends to be shocked by how much power he has, what fame. I am the Femme Fatale who attacks insecure men and takes the initiative so they don't have to do anything or worry about anything. I am a Loving mother who tenderly takes care of those who need advice, who patiently listens to all the stories, even if they fly into her ear and fly out of the other.
At the beginning of time, men and women were not created as they are now - it was a single being, but with two faces looking in different directions. One body, one neck, but four arms and four legs and features of both sexes. It was as if their backs had grown together. However, the jealous Greek gods noticed that thanks to four arms this creature works more, and two faces looking in different directions allow it to always be on the alert, so that it cannot be taken by surprise, and on four legs one can stand for a long time and go far. But the most dangerous thing is that, being bisexual, it did not need anyone to produce its own kind. And Zeus, the supreme Olympian god, then said: “I know what to do so that these mortals lose their strength.” And with a lightning strike he cut the creature in two, creating a man and a woman. Thus, the population of the earth increased greatly, but at the same time weakened and became confused - from now on, everyone had to look for their lost half and, uniting with it, regain their former strength, and the ability to avoid betrayal, and the ability to work for a long time, and walk tirelessly. And it is this connection, when two bodies merge into one, that we call sex.
All my life I have perceived love as conscious and voluntary slavery. And I was deceived - freedom exists only if it is revealed and shown. The one who gives himself over to feeling without looking back, the one who feels free, he loves with all the strength of his soul.
And the one who loves with all the strength of his soul feels free.
Passion does not allow a person to eat, sleep and work, and deprives him of peace. Many are afraid of her because, when she appears, she destroys and breaks everything that was former and familiar. Nobody wants to bring chaos into their organized world. Many are able to foresee this threat and know how to strengthen the rotten rafters so that the dilapidated building does not collapse. These are engineers in the highest sense. And others do just the opposite: they rush headlong into passion, hoping to find in it a solution to all their problems. They place on another person all responsibility for their happiness and for the fact that happiness did not work out. They are always either in complete delight, expecting magic and miracles, or in despair, because some unforeseen circumstances intervened and destroyed everything. To distance yourself from passion or to blindly indulge in it - which is less destructive?
... a dream is a very convenient thing, because we are not at all obliged to realize what we dream about. We are freed from risk, from the bitterness of failure, from difficult moments, and when we grow old, we can always blame someone - whether our parents (this happens most often), spouses, children - for not achieving what we wanted.
Two women coexist in me: one wants to get from life all the passion, joy, adventure that it can give. And the other wants to become a slave to quiet everyday life, the family hearth, everything that can be planned and executed. I am a mother of a family and a prostitute at the same time, and both live in my body and fight with each other.
What is this “the power of beauty”? And how do ugly women live in the world? Maria had several friends whom no one noticed at parties, whom no one asked: “How are you?” Incredible, but true - these ugly girls valued the crumbs of love incomparably less, suffered silently when they found themselves rejected, and tried to look into the future, finding something else besides the need to put on makeup and dress up in order to please someone. They were much more independent and lived in harmony with themselves, although, in Mary’s opinion, the world must have seemed completely unbearable to them.
For I am the first and I am the last, I am the revered and the despised. I am a harlot and a saint. I am a wife and a maiden. I am mother and daughter. I am my mother's hands. I am barren, but my children are countless. I am happily married and single. I am the one who gives birth, and the one who will never give birth. I ease the pain of childbirth. I am a husband and wife. And it was I who gave birth to my husband, I am the mother of my father. I am the sister of my husband, Worship me forever. For I am malicious and generous.
A woman's meeting with herself is an exciting, but extremely dangerous game. This is a divine dance. When they meet, two clots of divine energy, two galaxies, will collide. And if this meeting is not arranged properly, one galaxy can destroy another.
Eleven minutes
#P3_3course
I had a classmate who was engrossed in Coelho, well, how engrossed she was, she read one book (possibly in her entire life) and spent the entire third year posting quotes and admiring it, so when I came across the book on the lists, I thought it was time to find out what she was so excited about.
The book tells about Maria's life somewhere on the outskirts of Brazil, in a boring city, in a poor and not very understanding family, first love and first disappointment and subsequent ones, faith and dreams of a bright future for which she actually went to Switzerland straight from her vacation in Rio with a shady guy because she and her mother thought it was a great idea. But as happens when you rush to the other side of the world in the hope of making a lot of money, but nothing comes of it, it didn’t work out in the cabaret, so she got into modeling (what a banality) and then she discovered the world of sex for money and she really liked it. But Maria is not just some kind of prostitute, she is a prostitute with books on self-development in her hands (and this is not even sarcasm) and a clear plan to retire as soon as she earns the required amount and does not plan to fall in love, but every prostitute sooner or later must meet your Richard Gere (how corny 2).
A prostitute's path to love and God... Well, that's it. I realized that I wouldn’t like the book even at the dedication, they usually touch me, but this was just one for my inflated ego, and not a dedication. The plot is simply trivial to the point of nausea, no matter how the author tries to pretend that she is all so smart and on self-development, we understand that she is not, just as we understand that Coelho knows nothing about female masturbation, so why was she sweating all the time? Was she under the duvet or something? Northern gods, what a stupid book, it’s not romantic, it’s not frank, because writing about the orgasm experienced during physical punishment is not yet baring your soul, and the technique of releasing pain out is so hackneyed that in order to claim originality you need to be able to describe it very cool . And the story of love, its development and how it ended is the most banal banality, it is even impossible to criticize it, because there is nothing to criticize here. Like the entire book, there is absolutely nothing in it except a hackneyed plot, the same hackneyed plot twists and an absolutely bland and boring story. I don’t understand how it even became so popular, or how people find something to quote from it.
Well, the cherry on the cake is the author’s afterword, which I usually also love to read, but this... It’s like a real story of a prostitute whom he met by chance, because a bunch of prostitutes were delighted with his work and he ran to hug them and there he was alone I laid out all of them to him as if in spirit, he combed it and voila the story is ready. Seriously? After this, the story became even more implausible, and it was far from that even before. It would be better if I rewatched the beauty, and did not waste time on this graphomania.
Paulo Coelho "11 minutes"
...I should write about what interests me, and not about what certain people would like to read about.
Paulo Coelho.
Girls looking for happiness in distant lands - this is about you. People who believe that the concepts of “sex” and “love” are directly related - this is for you. For his latest book, the smiling, gray-haired Brazilian chose a topic that is not the simplest, but incredibly popular: sex. Why? “I was trying to understand my own sexuality – and at the same time understand what makes the whole world revolve around these eleven minutes of sex.”
“, - the writer answers, as always, sincerely and straightforwardly.
In some provincial Brazilian town there lived a girl, Maria, who was prone to introspection. She grew and grew and grew into an attractive young lady, aware of her attractiveness. At the age of 19, she made a forced march to Rio de Janeiro, so to speak, “to show herself, to look at others.” She was noticed by a rich Swiss, and now, entangled in promises, she flies to the land of banks and chocolate to become a star. She did not become a star - she became “one of” the casino’s dancers. Once she broke the rules and got fired from her job, however, by that time she had learned the language and got kicked out with good compensation. She had money for the return journey, but it was not enough for a triumphant return. And so, having weighed everything and thought it over, the girl resorts to the services of one of the oldest professions. Not from lack of money, not from despair - Masha very deliberately becomes a prostitute. He works in the evenings, goes to the library during the day, and reads books. Sometimes she dreams of the time when she will go home and buy herself a farm with the money she earns, and even specifically tries to read books on managing a household plot. But the main thing is that she keeps a diary in which she talks about love and sex, these diary wisdom shines, showing how Masha’s perception of the world changes from entry to entry. The girl is growing up.
“...The session lasts on average 45 minutes, and if you subtract the time for undressing and dressing, insincere affection, exchange of platitudes, then only eleven minutes remain for pure sex. The thing on which the world turns lasts only eleven minutes.”
“...A lover will never hurt his beloved; Each of us is responsible for the feelings we experience, and we have no right to blame the other for this. Losing people I've fallen in love with has hurt my soul before. Now I am convinced: no one can lose anyone, because no one belongs to anyone. This is true freedom - to have what is most dear to you, but not to own it.”
“...A lover makes love constantly, even when he is not making love. When bodies meet, it only means that the contents of the cup have spilled over the edge. They can stay together for hours and even days on end. They may begin intercourse today and complete it tomorrow, or they may not even complete it, because the pleasure is too great. Nothing to do with eleven minutes."
Unlike millions of similar stories, this one will end happily: Masha will grow wiser and find happy love. The only unusual thing is that Masha will be able to keep her love thanks to the conclusions she came to while engaging in prostitution. (Yes, that’s it!) By the way, Maria really existed (now, according to the author’s afterword, she lives in Lausanne with her husband and two lovely daughters), and more than half of the book is based on her experience. The diary entries are also not Coelho’s invention; here he used fragments of the unpublished book “The Science of Passion” by Antonella Zara. Well, the rest is the writer’s own vision, the results of conversations with friends, the experience of humanity.
Men, of course, won’t like it - it looks too much like a women’s novel; Yes, they don’t really like “Castaneda for the Poor” at all, and those who read “11 Minutes” will probably not fail to reproach: they found someone to make a “warrior of light”! Tough men, Coelho does not idealize prostitution, he simply does not condemn it. And in general, prostitution is here in passing: “I do not pretend to study the phenomenon of prostitution
, says Coelho."
“I tried not to judge in any way the choices my heroine makes.
All I'm really interested in here is how people relate to each other sexually." As usual, the book is written in simple and accessible language. Many condemn Coelho for this “simplicity”, suspecting the writer of intellectual mimicry: they say, he deliberately imbues the books with a kind of banal pseudo-wisdom that appeals to the taste of a wide and, by implication, narrow-minded public. Like any others, these arguments have a right to exist. Although sometimes it seems to me that the authors of such remarks are simply jealous, knowing that this “simple” Coelho is read by forty million people, albeit narrow-minded ones. Maybe they think they could write something like this too? Maybe they could. But it is unlikely that they would have been able to claim anything more than a collection of aphorisms. It's not just about the content. A book, like a painting, sculpture or other work of art, in addition to direct information (such as the content of a book, an image in a painting, the form of a sculpture), necessarily carries the energetic message of the author. Perhaps not everyone realized this, but it is true. There is such a powerful positive energy trail behind the “simple” texts of Koel’s books! To feel it, you don’t have to read all twelve volumes of Castaneda (just kidding) - you just need to have a heart. Coelho writes with his heart, which is why he is so loved. He reminds me of the Creole gem Cesaria Evora, a singer who, like Coelho, is loved by millions of people, rich and poor, happy and unhappy. Evora, too, you know, is incredibly simple, a country girl, now, however, a grandmother. I once composed and sang a song to my fiancé - alas, the groom died at sea, the girl’s heart broke, decades have passed since then, but the song does not get old, Cesaria still opens each of her concerts with it. She sings with her heart, Coelho writes. And even if we assume that both of them are great mystifiers, pretending to be “simple” in order to gain popularity in wide circles - and if at the same time they are read and listened to by millions, and if some of these millions feel - for a moment or forever - easier , calmer, more understandable in this world - does it really matter? Let them mystify.
Actually, I didn’t find anything new for myself personally in “11 Minutes”. We women, you know, have a direct connection with space... What some men realize in their sixties, many of us understand much earlier. The book didn't blow me away, but it didn't disappoint me either. Light, as always. There are people who are a pleasure to listen to, no matter what they talk about. There are people who are useful to listen to. Listening to Coelho is pleasant and useful. And if you don’t realize this, most likely, sad as it may be, you just haven’t grown up to it yet.
Elizaveta Kalitina
