“The devil has taken possession of everybody in Ilhéus. All they think about is money and bigness. They’re on the road to hell. Things are going to start happening…”

“...it is a very risky thing for anyone to go about proclaiming the truth simply because he finds himself in possession of concrete documentary proofs or on the evidence of his own eyes, which is always overestimated.”

“I have already told you Father, more than once: I’m not going to subject myself to a husband chosen for me, I’m not going to bury myself in some planter’s kitchen, and I’m not going to be a servant to some doctor or lawyer in Ilhéus. I want to live my own life. When I finish school at the end of the year, I want to go to work in an office”

“He wanted her to be as well dressed as the richest lady in Ilhéus; fine clothes would erase her past and hide the stove burns of her arms. But the fine clothes rarely left the closet”

“Love--the most wonderful and most terrible thing in the world.”

“I believe that she has the kind of magic that causes revolutions and promotes great discoveries. There’s nothing I enjoy more than to observe Gabriela in the midst of a group of people. Do you know what she reminds me of? A fragrant rose in a bouquet of artificial flowers.”

“Love is not to be proven or measured...It exists, and that is enough.”