Paulo Lins

Paulo Lins (born January 11, 1958) is a Brazilian author.

Lins in 2013

Quotes

• These are two different worlds that have no contact with each other…The elite is ignorant of the favela because it doesn't want to see, and the favela doesn't know the rest of Brazil because it is deprived of the means and the opportunity.
  • On how his book City of God shed light on Brazil’s slums in “THE SATURDAY PROFILE; Out of the Slums of Rio, an Author Finds Fame” in The New York Times (2003 Apr 26)

• The world of the favela today is much more cruel than when I was growing up there or even as I show it in my book…If I were to write about the way things are today, I would start the book with a pile of rubber tires, gasoline and someone being burned alive.
  • On how the favela has changed since his time in “THE SATURDAY PROFILE; Out of the Slums of Rio, an Author Finds Fame” in The New York Times (2003 Apr 26)

• From the outside, the favela and everyone in it look the same, but there are various strata, and my family was one of those at the top of the pyramid…Below us were the garbage collectors, delivery boys and street vendors who made even less money than we did, and then those who were so poor that they never even left the favela and lived from odd jobs here and there.
  • On where his family stood in the strata of the favelas in “THE SATURDAY PROFILE; Out of the Slums of Rio, an Author Finds Fame” in The New York Times (2003 Apr 26)

• Brazil is a racist country and a racist society…But the funny thing is that nobody will admit to being a racist, and that's the problem. Blacks in Brazil are always in an inferior, subaltern position, but you can't find a white person who is a racist.
  • On racism in Brazil in in “THE SATURDAY PROFILE; Out of the Slums of Rio, an Author Finds Fame” in The New York Times (2003 Apr 26)