Only this much I knew - that under ideal conditions, true education could be imparted only by the parents, and that then there should be the minimum of outside help.
The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.
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.
I am utterly against any kind of guilt. Remember it always: if you start feeling guilty about something around me, then you are doing it on your own, then you are still carrying the voices of your parents, the priests within you; you have not yet heard me, you have not yet listened to me. I want you to be totally free of all guilt.
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.