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.'

It is not pornography that is obscene, it is hunger that is obscene.

Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts.

. . . if there is a way for the world to be transformed for the better, it can only be done by pessimism; optimists will never change the world for the better.

I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches, copies of copies, until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity, doubt, uncertainty, not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material, but because that is the way we humans really are.

One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.

God, the devil, good, evil, it's all in our heads, not in Heaven or Hell, which we also invented. We do not realize that, having invented God, we immediately became His slaves.