A writer is a man like any other: he dreams. And my dream was to be able to say of this book, when I finished: 'This is a book about Alentejo.'

...the habit of falling hardens the body, reaching the ground, to in itself, is a relief.

I always ask two questions: How many countries have military bases in the United States? And in how many countries does the United States not have military bases?

The minds of human beings are not always entirely at one with the world in which they live, some people have trouble adjusting to reality, basically they're just weak, confused spirits who use words, sometimes very skillfully, to justify their cowardice.

A tree weeps when cut down, a dog howls when beaten, but a man matures when offended.

A writer is a man like any other: he dreams. And my dream was to be able to say of this book, when I finished: 'This is a book about Alentejo.'

At the end of the 1950s, I started working at a publishing company, Estudios Cor, as production manager, so returning, but not as an author, to the world of letters I had left some years before.