Night was running ahead of itself.

He owned a whole world full of memories, of lovely moments relived and happy recollections. I'm not saying he was happy or that he didn't suffer. He suffered very much, but he did not despair; he still drew nourishment from what he had been given. But the sadness never left him. Happiness needs more than memories of the past to feed on; it also needs dreams of the future.

That's the very reason why love is eternal, because it is forever renewed. Passions die, love remains.

I am a writer who has written about the life of my people, the character of my people. What I can say is that the greatest hero of the Brazilian novel is the Brazilian people.

I am like my characters - sometimes even the female ones.

...it is a very risky thing for anyone to go about proclaiming the truth simply because he finds himself in possession of concrete documentary proofs or on the evidence of his own eyes, which is always overestimated.

Many things I might not write today because I no longer believe them, but I wouldn't change them, since I believed them at the time.