José Saramago Quotes
November 16, 1922 – June 18, 2010
More José Saramago Quotes
I'm not pessimistic. It is the world that is terrible. How can we be optimistic in the face of a planet where people live so badly, nature is being destroyed and the dominant empire is money?
José Saramago— ÉPOCA Interview (in Portuguese), São Paulo, 2005.
In order to protect the physical hygiene and mental health of the living, we usually bury the dead.
José Saramago— p. 181 (All the Names (1997))
Life is like that, full of words that are not worth saying or that were worth saying once but not any more, each word that we utter will take up the space of another more deserving word not deserving in its own right, but because of the possible consequences of saying it.
José Saramago— A vida é assim, está cheia de palavras que não valem a pena, ou que valeram e já não valem, cada uma que ainda formos dizendo tirará o lugar a outra mais merecedora, que o seria não tanto por si mesma, mas pelas consequências de tê-la dito.
— The Cave p. 28 (Vintage 2003)
It is not pornography that is obscene, it is hunger that is obscene.
José Saramago— Não é a pornografia que é obscena, é a fome que é obscena. Interview Programa Jô Soares, 1997.
The question suddenly came into my head, 'And if we were all blind?' And then immediately, as if answering myself, 'But we are all blind.'
José Saramago— On the idea for his novel (Blindness), which came to him in a restaurant; New York Times interview with Alan Riding (1998), quoted in Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies, 6th Edition (Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 2001), p. 131.
— Um dia, sentado à mesa, pensei: E se fôssemos todos cegos? Imediatamente me veio a resposta: Nós somos todos cegos.
Sometimes I say that writing a novel is the same as constructing a chair: a person must be able to sit in it, to be balanced on it. If I can produce a great chair, even better. But above all I have to make sure that it has four stable feet.
José Saramago— Interview with Katherine Vaz, José Saramago, BOMB Magazine, June 2001.
We live in a very peculiar world. Democracy isn't discussed, as if it was taken for granted, as if democracy had taken God's place, who is also not discussed.
José Saramago— Quoted in Evans, 2002, p. 13, as reported in Fundamentals of action research, Vol. I (2005), p. 305.
If I could repeat my childhood, I would repeat it exactly as it was, with the poverty, the cold, little food, with the flies and pigs, all that.
José Saramago— Interview with Edney Silvestre, 2007.
Globalization is a form of totalitarianism... It is the rich who rule, and the poor live as they can.
José Saramago— Interview with Edney Silvestre, 2007.
I write to try to understand, and because I have nothing better to do.
José Saramago— "Efe" report, in Arrecife de Lanzarote (Spain), "Saramago diz que escreve por não ter 'nada melhor para fazer'", published in Folha de São Paulo, 2007.
We humans are, at bottom, carriers of the time, because we take it with us, we use it, sometimes we waste it and sometimes something remains, though everything is doomed to oblivion.
José Saramago— "Efe" report, Folha de São Paulo, 2007.
God, the devil, good, evil, it's all in our heads, not in Heaven or Hell, which we also invented. We do not realize that, having invented God, we immediately became His slaves.
José Saramago— Interview with "El País", 2009.
There are those who deny me the right to speak of God, because I am not a believer. And I say that I have every right in the world. I want to talk about God because it is a problem that affects all humanity.
José Saramago— Interview with "El País", 2009.
The worst thing about death is that you once were, and now you are not.
José Saramago— O pior da morte é que antes estavas e agora não estás.
— Interview, O Saramago que conheço, Portal 730, 2010.
...Jesus slowly turned to look at her and said, I have never been with a woman. Mary held his hands, This is how everyone has to begin, men who have never known a woman, women who have never known a man, until the day comes for the one who knows to teach the one who does not.
José Saramago— p. 235 (The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991))
You know the name you were given,You do not know the name you have
José Saramago— "The book of certainties"
No life is without its lies.
José Saramago— p. 172 (All the Names (1997))
when you are old and realize that time is running out, you start imagining that you have the cure for all the ills of the world in your hand, and get frustrated because no one pays you any attention,
José Saramago— p. 172 (All the Names (1997))
The wisest man I ever knew in my whole life could not read or write. At four o'clock in the morning, when the promise of a new day still lingered over French lands, he got up from his pallet and left for the fields, taking to pasture the half-dozen pigs whose fertility nourished him and his wife...
José Saramago— Referring to his grandfather, Jerónimo Meirinho.
It is true what people say, the young have the ability, but lack the wisdom, and the old have the wisdom, but lack the ability.
José Saramago— The Cave p. 4 (Vintage 2003)
Destiny isn’t taken in by people trying to make what came first come afterwards.
José Saramago— The Cave p. 12 (Vintage 2003)
Even the strongest spirits have the moments of irresistible weakness
José Saramago— The Cave p. 15 (Vintage 2003)
At this time of life even a day makes a difference, the only saving grace is that sometimes things improve.
José Saramago— p. 43 (Vintage 2003)
The beginning is never the clear, precise end of a thread, the beginning is a long, painfully slow process that requires time and patience in order to find out in which direction it is heading, a process that feels its way along the path ahead like a blind man. The beginning is just the beginning, what came before is night on worthless.
José Saramago— The Cave p. 54 (Vintage 2003)
In general, fakirs, like scribes and potters, are sitting down, when he’s standing up, a fakir is just like an other man, and sitting down, he’ll be smaller than the others,
José Saramago— The Cave p. 60 (Vintage 2003)
The best way to killing a rose is to force it open when it is still only the promise of a bud.
José Saramago— p. 89 (Vintage 2003)
Every thing in life is a uniform; the only time our bodies are truly in civilian dress is when we’re naked.
José Saramago— p. 92 (Vintage 2003)
Creating is always so much more stimulating than destroying.
José Saramago— p. 107 (Vintage 2003)
