Novelists From Brazil

"Machado de Assis is almost certainly the greatest of all Portuguese-language novelists. He is also a novelist far ahead of his time. There is little in the twentieth-century novel that his subtle, ingenious and sardonic technical procedures do not anticipate. His style – elegant, cool, always restrained – is unsurpassed in the Portuguese language."

"O destino não é só dramaturgo, é também o seu próprio contra-regra, isto é, designa a entrada dos personagens em cena, dá-lhes as cartas e outros objetos, e executa dentro os sinais correspondentes ao diálogo, uma trovoada, um carro, um tiro."

"I was going to tell you something very important. But it is so important I'd rather not say it. Only that which is not said is sincere... Only silence is sincere. The silence of someone who is sleeping, for example. How sincere is a sleeper! Sincere as a flower... It is in sleeping that everyone reveals themselves, because of the silence."

"The other passengers gazed at each other and there was established that silent solidarity of those who secretly hope to God that the plane will not fall. p264"

"the circle of politicians which surrounded him--flatterers, eventual profiteers, changed ideas and convictions like changing a shirt, followed the expediency of the moment. p245"

"Dante would not have forgotten: they say that when Dante was a boy, he was asked: Dante what is the best food? to test his memory. Eggs, replied Dante. Years later, when Dante was a grown man, he was asked only: how? and Dante replied: fried. p30"

"writers without books, poets without verses, painters without pictures p198"

"Conmigo se hay vuelto loca toda la anatomía. ¡Soy todo corazón! p64"

"Gide says the hell of this life is that between a hundred paths we have to choose only one, and live with nostalgia for the other ninety nine. p51"

"“My son, everything works out in the end. If it didn’t, it’s because it hasn’t come to an end yet.”"

"Everything one sees is merely a projection of what one does not see, its true nature and substance. p315"

"Coelho’s books include eight novels, two s, several collections of occasional writing, a volume of quotations, and “Warrior of the Light: A Manual,” a book of s. They have sold nearly a hundred million copies. Bellboys, waitresses, and policemen recognize his face; in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, President Clinton was photographed carrying a copy of “The Alchemist.” In his writings, Coelho, who is Catholic—though he says he does not “kiss the hand of the Pope, that’s for sure”—presents himself as a searcher and a sage, a hybrid of Carlos Castaneda and Kahlil Gibran. His cosmology, which includes angels and devils, signs, omens, and, for each person, a destiny called his Personal Legend, promises that whatever is sought—love, money, inspiration—can be readily attained. Quotidian events, like weather and coincidence, he sees as miraculous."

"When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way."

"The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. I like it because it is hopeful and inspiring. It tells the story of a boy who embarks on a journey to find a treasure, but as he goes along, he learns from every part of his journey and every person he meets. In the end, he finds his treasure in a very interesting place. His story tells you that you should believe in yourself and continue your journey."

"The wise are wise only because they love."

"When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny."

"Terror, terror, terror. Life was a reign o terror in the shadow of the guillotine."

"The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions."

"There is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for."

"You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it."

"A disciple asked Hejasi: - I want to know what is the most funny thing about human beings. Hejasi said: - That they always think crooked: they’re in a hurry to grow, then lament their lost childhood, and soon lose the money they need to keep their health. "They are so anxious about the future, that they neglect the present, and thus live in neither the present nor the future." "They live as if they were never going to die, and die as if they had never lived.""

"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.""

"As an author, I should be defending ‘intellectual property’, but I’m not. Pirates of the world, unite and pirate everything I’ve ever written!"

"We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how."

"I ask myself: are defeats necessary? Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for a dream, we have no experience and make mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times."

"If you come here, you will find a hidden treasure."

"I told you that your dream was a difficult one. It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them."

"At a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie."

"There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe.... The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness."

"E quando você quer alguma coisa, todo o Universo conspira para que você realize seu desejo."

"At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny."

"Life attracts life."

"As he mused about these things, he realised that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure."

"He had worked for an entire year to make a dream come true, and that dream, minute by minute, was becoming less important. Maybe cause that wasn't really his dream."

"We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand."

"If I am really a part of your dream, you'll come back one day."

"If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise," said the seer. "If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur."

"The desert takes our dreams away from us, and they don't always return. We know that, and we are used to it. Those who don't return become a part of the clouds, a part of the animals that hide in the ravines and of the water that comes from the earth. They become part of everything... They become the Soul of the World."

"One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving."

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

"Don't think about what you've left behind, the alchemist said to the boy as they began to ride across the sands of the desert. "Everything is written in the Soul of the World, and there it will stay forever.""

"If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return."

"There is only one way to learn … It's through action."

"A grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it."

"It is said that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn."

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

"The wise men understood that this natural world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect. God created the world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand his spiritual teachings and the marvels of his wisdom. That's what I mean by action."

"Wherever your heart is, that is where you'll find your treasure."

"It's true that everything has its Personal Legend, but one day that Personal Legend will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new Personal Legend, until, someday, the Soul of the World becomes one thing only."

"Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. … It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that's where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are."