When I was a very young author, I knew I needed to build myself a tower outside of Europe. Like when you're a hunter, and build towers to watch the animals move. I knew I would never understand the world without that perspective. I came to Africa for that rational reason, although I love Mozambique now.

To grow up is to wonder about things; to be grown up is to slowly forget the things you wondered about as a child.

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

As a writer, I am an intellectual. I believe in the ideals of the Enlightenment, I believe in the written word, in dialogue and in truth. I hate lies more than anything else. Most of the time I react by writing.

Poverty always looks the same, no matter where you come across it. The rich can always express their opulence by varying their lives. Different houses, clothes, cars. Or thoughts, dreams. But for the poor there is nothing but compulsory grayness, the only form of expression available to poverty.

When someone asks me to list the 10 best novels ever written, I always refuse to answer.

People always leave traces. No person is without a shadow.