Jose Saramago Best Quotes & Sayings

It is an unwavering rule for those in power that, when it comes to heads, it is best to cut them off before they start thinking, afterwards, it might be too late. — Jose Saramago

Sometimes we ask ourselves why happiness took so long to arrive, why it didn't come sooner, but appears suddenly, as now, when we've given up hope of it ever arriving, it's likely then that we won't know what to do, and rather than it being a question of choosing between laughter and tears, we will be filled by a secret anxiety to which we might not know how to respond at all. — Jose Saramago

Americans have discovered the fragility of life, that ominous fragility that the rest of the world either already experienced or is experiencing now with terrible intensity. — Jose Saramago

News is nothing but words, and you can never really tell if words are news. — Jose Saramago

Here are times when it is best to be content with what one has, so as not to lose everything. — Jose Saramago

Death is present every day in our lives. It's not that I take pleasure in the morbid fascination of it, but it is a fact of life. — Jose Saramago

people's lives could also be told from front to back, one could wait until they ended and then, gradually, follow the stream back to the source, identifying the tributaries on the way and sailing up them too, aware that each one, even the smallest and feeblest, was, in its time and in itself, a major river, and in this slow, deliberate way, alert to every scintillation on the surface of the water, every bubble risen from the bottom, every sudden downward flurry, every stagnant stillness, reach the end of the narrative and place after the first of all moments the final full stop, and to take the same amount of time that the lives thus told had actually lasted. — Jose Saramago

When you grow up, you'll want to be happy. You don't give a thought to that now, which is why you are happy. The moment you think about it, the moment you want to be happy, you will cease to be happy. Forever. Possibly forever. Do you hear? Forever. The stronger your desire to be happy, the unhappier you will be. Happiness isn't something you can conquer. People will tell you that it is. Don't believe them. Happiness either is or isn't. — Jose Saramago

I don't doubt that a man can live perfectly well on his own, but I'm convinced that he begins to die as soon as he closes the door of his house behind him. — Jose Saramago

I am traveling less in order to be able to write more. I select my travel destinations according to their degree of usefulness to my work. — Jose Saramago

We know that it is the search that gives meaning to any find and that one often has to travel a long way in order to arrive at what is near. — Jose Saramago

From literature to ecology, from the escape velocity of galaxies to the greenhouse effect, from garbage disposal methods to traffic jams, everything is discussed in our world. But the democratic system, as if it were a given fact, untouchable by nature until the end of time, we don't discuss that. — Jose Saramago

The prime minister's final flourish, Honour your country, for the eyes of the country are upon you, complete with drumrolls and bungle blasts, unearthed from the attics of the mustiest of nationalistic rhetoric, was ruined by a Good night that rang entirely false, but then that is the great thing about ordinary words, they are incapable of deceit. — Jose Saramago

Hen he added, as if requiring a response to his own remark,
'Probably the greater the difference, the greater the similarity, and the greater the similarity, the greater the difference,' at that moment he did not yet know how right he was. — Jose Saramago

Unlike Joseph her husband, Mary is neither upright nor pious, but she is not blame for this, the blame lies with the language she speaks if not with the men who invented it, because that language has no feminine form for the words upright and pious. — Jose Saramago

It was said that one of them, either the actor or the history teacher, was superfluous in this world, but you weren't, you weren't superfluous, there is no duplicate of you to come and replace you at your mother's side, you were unique, just as every ordinary person is unique, truly unique. — Jose Saramago

Being fired was the best luck of my life. It made me stop and reflect. It was the birth of my life as a writer. — Jose Saramago

Now, on the contrary, here he was , plunged into a whiteness so luminous, so total, that it swallowed up rather than absorbed, not just colours, but the very things and beings , thus making them twice as invisible — Jose Saramago

I was employed as a salesman, selling a marvelous tea that could cure all ills. Funny, don't you think? I have never lied so much in my life, I traveled all over the country, selling my miraculous tea to whoever would believe me. I never felt guilty about it. The tea didn't do any harm, I can assure you, and my words gave such hope to those who bought it that I reckon they might still owe me money, because hope is beyond price. — Jose Saramago

Yes, My Son, man is a piece of wood, that can be used for everything, from the moment he's born until the moment he dies, he's always ready to obey, send him there and he goes, tell him to halt and he stops, tell him to turn back and he retreats, whether in peace or in war, man, generally speaking, is the best thing that could have happened to the gods, And the wood from which I'm made, since I'm a man, what use will it be put to, since I'm Your son, You will be the spoon I shall dip into humanity and bring out laden with men who shall believe in the new god I intend to become, Laden with men You will devour, There's no need for Me to devour those who devour themselves. — Jose Saramago

Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt. — Jose Saramago

If shame still has any meaning in this hell we're expected to live ... it is thanks to that person who had the courage to go and kill, ... Agreed, but shame won't fill our plates, ... You're right in what you say, there have always been those who have filled their bellies because they had no sense of shame. — Jose Saramago

The best way of killing a rose is to force it open when it is still only the promise of a bud. — Jose Saramago

The doctor's wife was not particularly keen on the tendency of proverbs to preach, nevertheless something of this ancient lore must have remained in her memory, the proof being that she filled two of the bags they had brought with beans and chick peas, Keep what is of no use at the moment, and later you will find what you need, one of her grandmothers had told her, the water in which you soak them will also serve to cook them, and whatever remains from the cooking will cease to be water, but will have become broth. It is not only in nature that from time to time not everything is lost and something is gained. — Jose Saramago

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? — Jose Saramago

It takes little or nothing to undo reputations, the merest trifle makes and remakes them, it is simply a question of finding the best means of engaging the confidence or interest of those who are to become one's unsuspecting echoes or accomplices. — Jose Saramago

It is an unvarying rule for those in power that, when it comes to heads, it is best to cut them off before they start to think, afterward, it might be too late. — Jose Saramago

What does reading do, You can learn almost everything from reading, But I read too, So you must know something, Now I'm not so sure, You'll have to read differently then, How, The same method doesn't work for everyone, each person has to invent his or her own, whichever suits them best, some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters, Unless, Unless what, Unless those rivers don't have just two shores but many, unless each reader is his or her own shore, and that shore is the only shore worth reaching. — Jose Saramago

Liking is probably the best form of ownership, and ownership the worst form of liking. — Jose Saramago

Whether in peace or in war, man generally speaking is the best thing that ever happened to the gods. — Jose Saramago

Our god, the creator of heaven and earth, is completely mad — Jose Saramago

And yet experience, unless applied to something, is just like that hoard of gold, for it neither produces nor bears fruit and is utterly useless. — Jose Saramago

Hard experience of life has shown us that, generally speaking, it is inadvisable to trust too much in human nature. — Jose Saramago

There are plenty of reasons not to put up with the world as it is. — Jose Saramago

Just two tears. That's all life is worth. — Jose Saramago

I thought that in order to have got to where we are someone else must have been blind. — Jose Saramago

These earthenware bowls are fragile and easily broken, they are only made of a little clay on which fortune has precariously bestowed a shape, and the same could be said of mankind. — Jose Saramago

Contrary to popular belief, the helpful words that open the way to great, dramatic dialogues are, in general, modest, ordinary, banal, no one would think that Would you like a cup of coffee could serve as an introduction to a bitter debate about feelings that have died or to the sweetness of a reconciliation that neither person knows how to bring about. — Jose Saramago

That is the dream of all novelists-that one of their characters will become 'somebody.' — Jose Saramago

I presume that nobody will deny the positive aspects of the North American cultural world. These are well known to all. But these aspects do not make one forget the disastrous effects of the industrial and commercial process of 'cultural lamination' that the USA is perpetrating on the planet. — Jose Saramago

... the worshipers here are not likely to kill one another, they all offer the same sacrifice, and how the fat spits and the carcasses sizzle as God in the sublime heavens inhales the odors of all this carnage with satisfaction. Jesus pressed his lamb to his breast, unable to fathom why God could not be appeased with a cup of milk poured over His altar, that sap of life which passes from one being to another, or with a handful of wheat, the basic substance of immortal bread. Soon he will have to part with the old man's generous gift, his for such a short time, the poor little lamb will not live to see the sun set this day, it is time to mount the stairs of the Temple, to deliver it to the knife and sacrificial fire, as if it were no longer worthy of existence or being punished ... — Jose Saramago

I had no books at home. I started to frequent a public library in Lisbon. It was there, with no help except curiosity and the will to learn, that my taste for reading developed and was refined. — Jose Saramago

Earthenware is like people, it needs to be well treated. — Jose Saramago

Now then, don't give it another thought, today it's your turn, tomorrow it will be mine, we never know what might lie in store for us, You're right, who would have thought, when I left the house this morning, that something as dreadful as this was about to happen. He was puzzled that they should still be at a standstill, Why aren't we moving, he asked, The light is on red, replied the other. From now on he would no longer know when the light was red. — Jose Saramago

For me, writing is a job. I do not separate the work from the act of writing like two things that have nothing to do with each other. I arrange words one after another, or one in front of another, to tell a story, to say something that I consider important or useful, or at least important or useful to me. — Jose Saramago

Oh, I'm not just going too far, I've arrived. — Jose Saramago

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. — Jose Saramago

From Spain expect only cold winds and cold wives.'" "Ah, so you don't think they get on, then? — Jose Saramago

I don't defend the idea of universal love. It has never existed and will never exist. — Jose Saramago

we shall no longer know who we are, or even remember our names — Jose Saramago