There are many ways to tell the truth. Perhaps the most persuasive is the one that looks like a lie. *

If any sentimental elation escapes, it is the tragedy of reality itself. Passion is only romantic when it is false. *

Naturalism was the gossip of drovers. Seeing well is not seeing everything: it’s seeing what others don’t see. *

The semi-barbarian soul is only a soul through the violence of the instincts. To interpret it with an artificial sobriety would be to take away its soul. There is a greater misery than starving in the desert: it is not having anything to eat in the land of Canaan. It is a sad book that seeks joy. The sadness of the Brazilian people is a poetic license…

*

Great moral shakes are like balloons: if they don’t kill, they immunize. But they leave the ostensible mark. Regionalism is the firearm of literature… But pain is universal, because it is an expression of humanity. And our incipient fiction cannot compete with the themes cultivated by a more refined intelligence: it will only interest for its revelations, for the originality of its unnoticed aspects.