Publishing is in a kind of Jurassic age.

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.

Today, writers want to impress other writers.

There is an afterlife. I am convinced of this.

I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death. They thought nobody can make a living from being a writer in Brazil. They were not wrong.

My connection with Brazil is so abstract. My blood and my way of thinking is Brazilian, but that's it. I don't tend to go back to the past, and although I have an apartment there, I rarely visit. When I move, I really move.

Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: we must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility.

My literature is much more the result of a paradox than that of an implacable logic, typical of police novels. The paradox is the tension that exists in my soul.

I am 100 per cent Virgo, stubborn, over-organised, slightly abstracted from the rest of the world.

I talk to my readers on social networking sites, but I never tell them what the book is about. Writing is lonely, so from time to time I talk to them on the Internet. It's like chatting at a bar without leaving your office. I talk with them about a lot of things other than my books.

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

Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.

Tears are words that need to be written.

When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you.