“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 am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on till I am.”

“I am interested in detail. I enjoy decoration. By accumulating this mass of detail you throw light on things in a longer sense: in the long run it all adds up. It creates a texture — how shall I put it — a background, a period, which makes everything you write that much more convincing. Of course, all artists are terrible egoists. Unconsciously you are largely writing about yourself. I could never write anything factual; I only have confidence in myself when I am another character. All the characters in my books are myself, but they are a kind of disguise.”

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

“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.”

“Why am I compelling to write? Because te writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appaese my appetites and hunger.”

“I am writing My Life to laugh at myself, and I am succeeding.”

“Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.”

“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.”

“If I thought that what I'm doing when I write is expressing myself, I'd junk the typewriter. Writing is a much more complicated activity that that.”