Chico Buarque Quotations

Most people know my music but will never read my books.

Music kind of kidnapped me for a while.

Whatever is original in my writing comes from my musical apprenticeship. I look for rhythm in words. I imagine words as if they were musical chords. Often I'll write something, read it, and find it musically unsatisfactory. There is a musical imperative in my choice of words.

Had I not become entangled with music, I would have become an author much earlier.

Every time I drive into Rio from the airport, I see the city for the first time and think how strange it is.

Some people thought I was using my popularity as a singer to sell my first novel. For others, it was almost a sacrilege: a practitioner of a minor art daring to enter the field of high art.

I'm not a professional. Yet somehow, I manage to get away with it.