Paulo Coelho "Aleph"

Aleph was written in Coelho's native language, Portuguese, and it has been translated into more than 27 languages.
 It became a bestselling novel in Brazil.

When the writer feels that his attempts are not properly being requited with the results he desired, he starts to have doubts about the path he is following and about the things he is doing. Then, as his master J. says, he starts trying to become the "King of his Kingdom" The master J. tells him that what the writer is feeling is what he himself had felt some years back. That way, the writer is convinced that what he is in is a phase he cannot withdraw himself from and then he goes to travel. The writer persuades his agent, and then makes out a way to visit Russia for his tour, on the pretext of signing books and holding various programmes for the promotion of his books in the northern Eurasian parts. In Russia, he comes across a girl, Hilal, who happens to be a Turk. She talks about her dream about a friend with a light and so does the story develops. Hilal also joins the writer in his carriage in the train. Then, in a vestibule, the two of them, the writer and Hilal see Aleph, which is defined as "a point where everything, the whole universe is contained"

Quotes from the book;

~ But time doesn't teach; it merely brings us a sense of wearingness and of growing older~ 

~ Traveling to past lives is like making a hole in the floor and letting the flames of the fire in the apartment below scorch and burn the present~

~ There is only the present moment, the now. You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. "Time" doesn't pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we're always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. Or else we think about future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner.  How to avoid what we don't want and how to get what we have always dreamed of~

~ Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving. Life is the train, not the station. And what you're doing now isn't traveling, it's just changing countries, which is completely different~

~ Hell is when we look back during that fraction of a second and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life. Paradise is being able to say at that moment: "I made some mistakes, but I wasn't a coward. I lived my life and did what I had to"~

~ Anyone who knows God cannot describe him. Anyone who can describe God does not know him~

~ Being alone may make me more vulnerable, but it makes me more open too~

~ Sometimes you have to travel a long way to find what is near~

~ That's what makes life interesting- believing in treasures and in miracles~