If I could repeat my childhood, I would repeat it exactly as it was, with the poverty, the cold, little food, with the flies and pigs, all that.

As my cat would say, all hours are good for sleeping.

Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.

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.

I believe that I've been asked all possible questions. I, myself, if I were a journalist, would not know what to ask me.

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

Because each of you has his or her own death, you carry it with you in a secret place from the moment you're born, it belongs to you and you belong to it.