… la muerte, por sí misma, sola, sin ninguna ayuda exterior, siempre ha matado mucho menos que el hombre.

Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts.

There is nothing healthier for a man than to walk on his own two legs.

No, there are three people in a marriage, there's the woman, there's the man, and there's what I call the third person, the most important, the person who is composed of the man and woman together.

The beginning is never the clear, precise end of a thread, the beginning is a long, painfully slow process that requires time and patience in order to find out in which direction it is heading, a process that feels its way along the path ahead like a blind man the beginning is just the beginning, what came before is nigh on worthless.

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

In general, fakirs, like scribes and potters, are sitting down, when he's standing up, a fakir is just like an other man, and sitting down, he'll be smaller than the others

A writer is a man like any other: he dreams. And my dream was to be able to say of this book, when I finished: 'This is a book about Alentejo'.