Mia Couto quotes:

Ideas, we all know, are not born in people's heads. They begin somewhere out there, loose wisps of smoke swirling directionless in their search for a befitting mind.

-Back there our sun doesn't speak.-Where's "there," Miss Marta?-Back there, in Europe. Here, it's different. Here, the sun moans, whispers, shouts.-Surely-I commented delicately-the sun is always the same.- You're wrong. There, the sun is a stone. Here it's a fruit.

He who seeks eternity should look at the sky, he who seeks the moment, should look at the cloud.

I was eleven years old when I saw a woman for the first time, and I was seized by such sudden surprise that I burst into tears.

Listen, and you will realize that we are made not from cells or from atoms. We are made from stories.

Love is a territory where orders can't be issued.

Our official histories of our countries and societies are made of forgetfulness,