It is true that my parents were worried because I began to speak fairly late, so that they even consulted a doctor. I can't say how old I was - but surely not less than three.
My parents have raised me with a sense of what's really important and have given me decent values, and I'm comfortable, but I haven't lived an excessive lifestyle in the least. And I've kept my expenses to a minimum so that I have the freedom to wait.
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 parents were so poor when I was a kid, I never went anywhere. I take our youngsters with us because I don't know anything that teaches them so much.
What does not wasting time change! The age of our parents, worse than that of our grandsires, has brought us forth more impious still, and we shall produce a more vicious progeny.
The honour of parents is a fair and noble treasure to their posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealth and honour, and to leave none to your successors, because you have neither money nor reputation of your own, is alike base and dishonourable.