Eleven Minutes

..a novel by Paulo Coelho. I love his bestselling novel "The Alchemist" but after reading "By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept" I felt that the author's style may be too serious and spiritual for my liking. Then I came upon this book, Eleven Minutes. Upon reading the synopsis at the back of the book displayed in NBS, I was interested in reading it. But apprehensive that it will end up as a disappointment like "By the River..", I decided to look for an e-book first. I found and bought one from ebay and after reading it, I bought the paperback. At the back of the book, a review says "One of the best books the author has written." In my case, it's one of the best books I've ever read...

As the author has mentioned in his dedication, the book "dealt with a subject that was harsh, difficult, shocking." I guess that's what caught my interest when I read the synopsis, I was intrigue that the author of something as "spiritual" as "By the River.." could actually touch on the topic of sex. He also said that "some books make us dream while others bring us face to face with reality"; For me, Eleven Minutes accomplished both.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

• I've realized that sometimes you get no second chance and that it's best to accept the gifts the world offers you.
• no one owns anything, that everything is an illusion-and that applies to material as well as spiritual things.
• it's best to live as if today were the first (or last) day of my life.
• I can choose to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It's all a question of how I view my life.
• I spend all day...longing for work to begin, and when I'm working, longing to get back to the boarding house. In other words, I'm living the future not the present.
• If I can walk on my own, I can go wherever I like.
• life is a fast, dizzying game...it's taking chances, falling over and getting up again...it's wanting to get to the very top of yourself and to feel angry and dissatisfied when you don't manage it.
• If I... had suddenly woken up on a roller coaster...I would feel trapped and sick, terrified of every bend...However, if I believe that the track is my destiny and that God is in charge of the machine, then the nightmare becomes something thrilling...which will eventually stop, but while the journey lasts, I must look at the surrounding landscape and whoop with excitement.
• Yes, perhaps love really could transform someone, but despair did the job more quickly.
• That's what the world is like: people talk as if they knew everything, but if you dare to ask a question, they don't know anything.
• A man doesn't prove he's a man by getting an erection. He's only a real man if he can pleasure a woman. And if he can pleasure a prostitute, he'll think he's the best lover on the block.
• Eleven minutes. The world revolved around something that only took eleven minutes...and yet when they got together with other men, contrary to popular belief, they never talked about women. They talked about jobs, money and sport.
• The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.
• we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.
• That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.
• Passion...it's there in the excitement of the unexpected, in the desire to do something with real fervor, in the cetainty that one is going to realize a dream.
• The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with.
• I want you however you want to be wanted
• When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing.
• It's true that we only know each other when we come up against our own limits, but it's wrong too, because it isn't necessary to know everything about ourselves; human beings weren't made solely to go in search of wisdom, but also to plough the land, wait for rain, plant the wheat, harvest the grain, make the bread.
• In order to master the soul, one must also learn to master the body.
• I felt that pain is a woman's friend...That is the danger. I also felt that pain has it's limits...That is the salvation.
• Pain is frightening when it shows its real face but it's seductive when it comes disguised as sacrifice or self-denial.
• However much we may reject it, we human beings always find a way of being with pain, of flirting with it and making it part of our lives.
• True, no one wants to suffer, and yet nearly everyone seeks out pain and sacrifice, and then they feel justified, pure, deserving of the respect of their children, husbands, neighbors, God.
• Money! A special piece of paper, decorated in sombre colors which everyone agreed was worth something-and she believed it, everyone believed it-until you take a pile of that paper to a bank, a respectable, traditional, highly confidential Swiss bank and asked: "Could I buy back a few hours of my life?" "No, madam, we don't sell, we only buy."
• It wasn't eleven minutes, it was an eternity. It was as if we had both left our bodies and were walking joyfully through the gardens of paradise in understanding and friendship.
• I don't know how long it lasted, but everything seemed to be silent, at prayer, as if the universe and life had ceased to exist and become transformed into something sacred, nameless, timeless.