Saying one thing while meaning another, often the opposite. The true meaning is left to the reader or listener.
In The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas
what influenced me most was the pleasure of seeing printed in the newspapers, shop windows, pamphlets, street corners [...] these three words: Emplasto Brás Cubas
Brás presents the plaster as a benefit to humanity and, in the same sentence, admits that what moved him most was seeing his own name printed: the remedy is a pretext and vanity is the true motive.
Chapters I to IX: Death, plaster, and delirium, the narrator
Living is not the same as dying; so say all the jewelers of this world, people who know their grammar well.
Chapters X to XVI: Childhood and Marcela, the narrator
Marcela loved me for fifteen months and eleven contos de réis; nothing less.
Chapters XVII to XXIV: Coimbra and His Mother's Death, the narrator
No; it is a thinking errata, that is what it is. Each stage of life is an edition that corrects the previous one, and will be corrected too, until the definitive edition, which the publisher gives free to the worms.
Chapters XXV to XXXVII: Tijuca, The Black Butterfly, and Eugênia, the narrator
Look how good it is to be superior to butterflies!
Chapters XXV to XXXVII: Tijuca, The Black Butterfly, and Eugênia, the narrator
Blessed are those who do not come down, for theirs is the first kiss of the young ladies.
Chapters XXV to XXXVII: Tijuca, The Black Butterfly, and Eugênia, the narrator
Virgília compared the eagle and the peacock, and chose the eagle, leaving the peacock with his astonishment, his spite, and the three or four kisses he had given her
Chapters XXXVIII to XLIX: Virgília Lost, the Death of His Father, and the Inheritance, the narrator
My father was astonished at the outcome, and it seems to me he died of nothing else
Chapters XXXVIII to XLIX: Virgília Lost, the Death of His Father, and the Inheritance, the narrator
the way to compensate for a closed window is to open another, so that morality may continually air out the conscience
Chapters L to LXIII: Virgília Married and the "Let's Flee!", the narrator
It was Hamlet's case: either to bow to fortune, or to struggle with it and subdue it. In other words: to embark or not to embark. That was the question
Chapters LXXVII to LXXXVII: The Presidency and the Peak of the Mountain, the narrator
The truth is that he was in dialogue with the embryo; it was the old colloquy of Adam and Cain, a conversation without words between life and life, mystery and mystery.
Chapters LXXXVIII to C: Viegas, Quincas Borba, and the Anonymous Letter, the narrator
I feel like suppressing this chapter. The slope is dangerous. But after all, I am writing my own memoirs, not yours, peaceful reader.
Chapters LXXXVIII to C: Viegas, Quincas Borba, and the Anonymous Letter, the narrator
I was not shaken: I took them to the cemetery, the way one takes money to a bank
Chapters CI to CXVI: The Wall, the Weld, and the Old Leaves, the narrator
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