Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.

Some people give theirselves a certain number of white weeks once in a year, when they do not drink a single drop of alcohol. It is really wise. I myself have a few weeks per year, let us call them white or black, when I am not interested in the world around. When I come back from this isolation of the news, I realize that I have missed nothing significant. We live in the rain of disinformation and rumors, where the truth is a very small number. In those weeks of dissociation I seek for knowledge that lies within me.

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.

You think you know everything about a person, but the truth often comes as a surprise.

Africa was the most exotic place I could conceive of - the end of the world - and I knew I would go there one day.

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.

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