I do not just write, I write what I am. If there is a secret, perhaps that is it.

I was born in a family of landless peasants, in Azinhaga, a small village in the province of Ribatejo, on the right bank of the Almonda River, around a hundred kilometres north-east of Lisbon.

In the end we discover the only condition for living is to die.

Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered

The wise man contents himself with what he has, until such time as he invents something better.

...we confidently say that it's not worth trying to reach any conclusions merely because we decide to stop halfway along the path that would lead us straight to them.

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