The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers.

There is relationship between sight and touch, something about eyes being able to see through the fingers touching the clay, about fingers being able to feel what the eyes are seeing without the fingers actually touching it.

Every thing in life is a uniform; the only time our bodies are truly in civilian dress is when we're naked.

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

There are plenty of reasons not to put up with the world as it is, and if the book has any kind of message, I suppose that's it.

I had no books at home. I started to frequent a public library in Lisbon. It was there, with no help except curiosity and the will to learn, that my taste for reading developed and was refined.

Liking is probably the best form of ownership, and ownership the worst form of liking.