A gypsy woman whom Santiago meets at the beginning of the novel. She interprets his recurring dream about the Egyptian Pyramids as a sign that he should travel to that place and seek a great treasure. As payment, she makes Santiago promise her 1/10th of the total of his treasure. When Santiago eventually finds the treasure, he holds true to this promise.
The Fortune-teller Quotes in The Alchemist
The The Alchemist quotes below are all either spoken by The Fortune-teller or refer to The Fortune-teller. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Harper One edition of The Alchemist published in 2014.
Part One
Quotes
“You came so that you could learn about your dreams,” said the old woman.
“And dreams are the language of God. When he speaks in our language, I
can interpret what he has said. But if he speaks in the language of the soul,
it is only you who can understand.”
Related Characters:
The Fortune-teller (speaker), Santiago
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue
Quotes
He thought of the many roads he had traveled, and of the strange way God had chosen to show him his treasure. If he hadn’t believed in the significance of recurrent dreams, he would not have met the Gypsy woman, the king, the thief, or…“Well, it’s a long list. But the path was written in the omens, and there was no way I could go wrong,” he said to himself.
Related Characters:
Santiago (speaker), Melchizedek (the Old Man), The Fortune-teller, The Thief (the Young Man)
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Alchemist LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Fortune-teller Character Timeline in The Alchemist
The timeline below shows where the character The Fortune-teller appears in The Alchemist. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part One
...He also remembers that in the next town he'll reach, Tarifa, there is an old fortune-teller who is able to interpret dreams.
(full context)
Santiago arrives in Tarifa and meets the fortune-teller, who leads him from her living room to a back room where she practices her...
(full context)
The fortune-teller says that she knows that Santiago came to learn about his dream. She adds that...
(full context)
The fortune-teller is silent for a while. Then she says that she is not going to charge...
(full context)
...He feels that he didn't need the interpretation to realize this about his dream. The fortune-teller says that the interpretation of the dream was difficult, because the simple things in life...
(full context)
...hidden treasure. Santiago remembers his dream, and suddenly everything becomes clear. He realizes that the fortune-teller and the old man may be working together to get money from him.
(full context)
...to keep working toward getting his treasure. Santiago tells Melchizedek about his promise to the fortune-teller. The old man says that it's good that Santiago has learned that everything in life...
(full context)
Epilogue
...he needs to go to Tarifa to give one tenth of his treasure to the fortune-teller, as he had promised long ago.
(full context)