At the time of independence in 1975, Mozambique was extremely poor. Many Portuguese residents abandoned the country, leaving only a handful of well-educated Mozambicans to try to run the country.

Society had grown cruel. People who felt they were unwanted or unwelcome in their own country, reacted with aggression. There was no such thing as meaningless violence. Every violent act had a meaning for the person who committed it. Only when you dared accept this truth could you hope to turn society in another direction.

I'm not very much of a reader really, because I find much of it very bad, very uninteresting, very speculative.

We don't have time to argue. Nobody has time.

You can have more than one home. You can carry your roots with you, and decide where they grow.

We used to send whole flocks of birds shooting out of our mouths and never managed to grab them by their wings.

He was so excessively polite that Wallendar suspected he had endured many humiliations in his life.