Saramago Quotes & Sayings

I am a person with leftist convictions, and always have been. — Jose Saramago

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

Switch on the light, she said, I want to know if this is real. — Jose Saramago

One could argue that those who have abandoned their homes do not deserve to live there and enjoy them — Jose Saramago

The only time we can talk about death is while we're alive, not afterwards. — Jose Saramago

The church I mentioned will be established, but its foundation, in order to be truly solid, will be dug in flesh, its walls made from the cement of renunciation, tears, agony, anguish, every conceivable form of death. — Jose Saramago

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

He did all this with great concentration in order to keep his thoughts at bay, in order to let them in only one at a time, having first asked them what they contained, because you can't be too careful with thoughts, some present themselves to us with a cloying air of false innocence and then, when it's too late, reveal their true wicked selves. — Jose Saramago

God does not forgive the sins He makes us commit. — 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

It's ridiculous to throw away the present just because you're afraid there might not be a future, she said to herself, adding, Besides, not everything will necessarily happen tomorrow, some things will happen only the day after tomorrow — Jose Saramago

The days are all the same, it's the hours that are different, when a day comes to an end it always does so with its twenty-four hours all present and correct, even when those hours contained nothing, but that's not the case with either your days or your hours — 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

There is no one here, said the girl with dark glasses, and burst into tears leaning against the door, her head on her crossed forearms, as if her with her whole body she were deperately imploring pity, if we did not have enough experience of how complicated the human spirit can be we would be surprised that she should be so fond of her parents as to indulge in these demonstrations of sorrow, a girl so free in her behaviour, but not far away is someone who has already affirmed that there does not exist nor ever has existed any contradiction between the one and the other. — 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

Time and time again one has seen how stories get exaggerated in the telling. — 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

In matters of feeling and of the heart, too much is always better than too little. — Jose Saramago

Blindness is a private matter between a person and the eyes with which he or she was born. — Jose Saramago

Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are. — Jose Saramago

The good and the evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much-talked-of immortality, Possibly, but this man is dead and must be buried. — Jose Saramago

I always ask two questions: How many countries have military bases in the United States? And in how many countries does the United States not have military bases? — 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

I know, to be useful," broke in Abel impatiently. "When I said that, I had no idea you would be leaving us so soon. I also said that I couldn't give you advice, and I say the same now. But you're leaving tomorrow and we might never see each other again. I decided that, even if I can't advise you, I can at least tell you that a life without love, a life like the one you described just now, isn't live at all, it's a dung heap, a sewer. — 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

I consider books to be good for our health, and also our spirits, and they help us to become poets or scientists, to understand the stars or else to discover them deep within the aspirations of certain characters, those who sometimes, on certain evenings, escape from the pages and walk among us humans, perhaps the most human of us all. — Jose Saramago

Abstention means you stayed at home or went to the beach. By casting a blank vote, you're saying you have a political conscience but you don't agree with any of the existing parties. — Jose Saramago

We no longer live in that fabulous age when the sun, to whom we owe so much, was so generous that it halted its journey over Gibeon in order to give Joshua ample time to overcome the five kings besieging the city. — Jose Saramago

he called out to the open sky, where God could be seen smiling, Men, forgive Him, for He knows not what He has done. — Jose Saramago

Holding the lamb in his arms, Jesus watched the people file past, some coming, some going, some carrying animals to be sacrificed, some returning without them, looking joyful and exclaiming, Alleluia, Hosanna, Amen, or saying none of these things, feeling it was inappropriate to walk around shouting Hallelujah or Hip hip hurrah, because there is really not much difference between the two expressions, we use them enthusiastically until with the passage of time and by dint of repetition we finally ask ourselves, What does it mean, only to find there is no answer. — Jose Saramago

I don't quite grasp your meaning.
Just as I don't quite understand what I am saying. But back to the point ... . — Jose Saramago

Each part in itself constitutes the whole to which it belongs. — Jose Saramago

Prudence tried to hold him back, grip him by the sleeve, but, as everyone knows, or should know, prudence is only of any use when it is trying to conserve something in which we are no longer interested. — Jose Saramago

You love me because you see me every day. You don't love me for who I am, you love me because of what I do or don't do. You don't know who I am. — Jose Saramago

Images don't see, You're wrong, images see with the eyes of those who see them, — Jose Saramago

I don't think it is worth explaining how a character's nose or chin looks. It is my feeling that readers will prefer to construct, little by little, their own character-the author will do well to entrust the reader with this part of the work. — Jose Saramago

Dignity has no price, when someone starts making small concessions, in the end, life loses all meaning. — Jose Saramago

It is economic power that determines political power, and governments become the political functionaries of economic power. — Jose Saramago

Confidential matters are not dealt with over the telephone, you'd better come here in person. I cannot leave the house, Do you mean you're ill, Yes, I'm ill, the blind man said after a pause. In that case you ought to call a doctor, a real doctor, quipped the functionary, and, delighted with his own wit, he rang off.
The man's insolence was like a slap in the face. Only after some minutes had passed, had he regained enough composure to tell his wife how rudely he had been treated. Then, as if he had discovered something that he should have known a long time ago, he murmured sadly, This is the stuff we're made of, half indifference and half malice. — Jose Saramago

Every thing in life is a uniform; the only time our bodies are truly in civilian dress is when we're naked. — Jose Saramago

A tree weeps when cut down, a dog howls when beaten, but a man matures when offended. — Jose Saramago

A man must earn his daily bread by some means some-where, and if his bread fails to nourish his soul, at least his body will be nourished while his soul suffers. — Jose Saramago

I write to try to understand, and because I have nothing better to do. — Jose Saramago

Unless Caesar Augustus is unwittingly complying with the will of God, if it is true that in His divine wisdom He has ordained that Joseph and Mary should go to Bethlehem at this time. — Jose Saramago

The wise man contents himself with what he has, until such time as he invents something better. — Jose Saramago

Today's bread does not eliminate yesterday's hunger, much less that of tomorrow. — Jose Saramago

We can be only too grateful that an Archbishop of Braga should have immersed himself so deeply in theological speculation, armed and equipped as he was for war, with his coat of mail, his broadsword dangling from the — Jose Saramago

Sometimes I do actually forget that the person to whom I owe that love is a real person, complete in himself, not someone who should make do with some rather diffuse emotion which gradually resigns itself to its own fatal vagueness, as if that were a fate against which there were no possible appeal ... — Jose Saramago

The difficult thing isn't living with other people, it's understanding them. — Jose Saramago

All stories are like those about the creation of the universe, no one was there, no one witnessed anything, yet everyone knows what happened. — Jose Saramago

What the day brings is one thing, what we ourselves contribute to the day is quite another — Jose Saramago

Given the behaviour of human beings throughout the ages, they do not deserve life, with its many dark sides, in all its beauty, grandeur and magnificence ... — Jose Saramago

the human body is also an organised system, it lives as long as it keeps organised, and death is only the effect of disorganisation, And how can a society of blind people organise itself in order to survive, By organising itself, to organise oneself is, in a way, to begin to have eyes — Jose Saramago

[ ... ]certainly not one of them would have known what to reply if they had been asked, Why are you holding hands as you go, it simply came about, there are gestures for which we cannot always find an easy explanation, sometimes not even a difficult one can be found. — 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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

... 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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts — Jose Saramago

Why they were loaded with bags of beans and peas and anything else they happened to pick up when they were still some distance away from the street where the first blind man and his wife lived, for that is where they are going, is a question that could only occur to someone who has never in his life suffered shortages. — Jose Saramago

...the man who I still am loves the woman that you are — Jose Saramago

We have deemed all these words necessary in order to explain that we have been traveling more slowly than was predicted, concision is not a definitive virtue, on occasion one loses out by talking too much, it is true, but how much has also been gained by saying more than was strictly necessary. — Jose Saramago

Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat. — Jose Saramago

By the altar, which is made of massive slabs of stone untouched by tools since hewn from the quarry and set up in this vast edifice, a barefooted priest wearing a linen tunic waits for the Levite to hand over the turtledoves. He takes the first one, carries it to a comer of the altar, and with a single blow knocks the head from its body. [ ... ] Joseph has nothing more to accomplish here, he must withdraw, collect his wife and child, and return home. Mary is pure once more, not in the strict sense of the word, because purity is something to which most human beings, and above all women, can scarcely hope to aspire. — Jose Saramago

In a matter of a moment the amount of sand in the upper part of the hour-glass had dwindled dramatically, the tiny grains were rushing through the opening, each grain more eager to leave then the last, time is just like people, sometimes it's all it can do to drag itself along, but at others, it runs like a deer and leaps like a young goat, which, when you think about it, is not saying much, since the cheetah is the fastest of all the animals, and yet it has never occurred to anyone to say of another person He runs and jumps like a cheetah, perhaps because that first comparison comes from the magical late middle ages, when gentlemen went deer-hunting and no one had ever seen a cheetah running or even heard of its existence. Languages are conservative, they always carry their archives with them and hate having to be updated. — Jose Saramago

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

Don't be afraid, the darkness you're in is no greater than the darkness inside your own body ... — Jose Saramago

With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny. — Jose Saramago

Words that come from the heart are never spoken, they get caught in the throat and can only be read in ones's eyes. — Jose Saramago

The day before is what we bring to the day we're actually living through, life is a matter of carrying along all those days-before just as someone might carry stones, and when we can no longer cope with the load, the work is done, the last day is the only one that is not the day before another day. — Jose Saramago

God will save you.
Surely you're forgetting that God saves souls rather than bodies. — Jose Saramago

Authors I've longed to write like - but realize I actually can't even begin to - include Poe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kafka, Daniil Kharms, Witold Gombrowicz, Emily Dickinson, Robert Walser, Barbara Comyns, Ntozake Shange, Camille Laurens, Zbigniew Herbert, and Jose Saramago. — Helen Oyeyemi

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

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

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

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