Although many of his other novels are brilliant there is a power in 'Oliver Twist' that I believe Dickens never managed to retrieve. It is as if he was sent to this earth with the sole purpose of writing this book.

Our exile organizations have been our way of replacing the cities and villages we have lost.

I can still remember the miraculous feeling of writing a sentence, then more sentences, telling a story. The first thing I wrote was a one-page summary of Robinson Crusoe and I am so sorry I do not have it any more; it was at that moment I became an author.

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

Justice doesn't only mean that the people who commit crime are punished. It also means that we can never give up seeking the truth.

Go to Mozambique! As long as you don't expect to find flawless infrastructure, just go. Because this is a country where people have not quite grown accustomed to tourists. You still feel a genuineness that no longer exists in countries where tourism has been industrially developed.

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