When in doubt, just take the next small step

Brazil is my way to see the world. Being born in that country means: "you don't have a wall separating the physical reality from the magical reality."

Walking helps me a lot to feel alive, and I do this every single day, my wife and I. We have long conversations about nature, and we also walk silently, just contemplating.

Up until then, whenever anyone had mentioned the possibility of making a film adaptation, my answer had always been, ‘No, I’m not interested.’ I believe that each reader creates his own film inside his head, gives faces to the characters, constructs every scene, hears the voices, smells the smells. And that is why, whenever a reader goes to see a film based on a novel that he likes, he leaves feeling disappointed, saying: ‘the book is so much better than the film.

Going to a charity tea party and thinking that you've done your bit toward putting an end to social inequity in the world.

Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist; that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment.

After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.