“I write
to astonish myself”

“I don't write in Portuguese. I write myself.”

“I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of.”

“I cannot write to anyone outside myself--if I tried, it would be a horrible story, flat and lifeless. I write to myself. That's the only person I'm trying to please.”

“When I write, I solemnly visit myself.”

“I write in order to comprehend, not to express myself.”

“I love to write and I assure you I write regularly… But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it.”

“At any rate I found myself writing because I had to write, although I didn’t know why.”

“Now I must, I suppose, explain why I have been writing this account. […] I have written to disclose myself to myself, and I am writing now because I will, I know, sometime read what I am now writing and wonder. Perhaps by the time I do, I will have solved the mystery of myself, or perhaps I will no longer care to know the solution.”

“I write and that way rid myself of me and then at last I can rest.”