I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement. Yes, I'm a writer, but I live in this world, and my writing doesn't exist on a separate level. And if people know who I am and read my books, well, good; that way, if I have something more to say, then everyone benefits.

Such is our need to shower blame on some distant entity when it is we who lack the courage to face up to what is there before us.

Consciences keep silence more often than they should, that's why laws were created.

It is difficult to understand these people who democratically take part in elections and a referendum, but are then incapable of democratically accepting the will of the people.

I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.

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.

Blessed be the night, which conceals and protects things fair and foul with the same indifferent mantle.