José Saramago: Trending quotes

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José Saramago: 276 quotes146 likes

“He felt very tired, not from the mental effort, but because he had suddenly seen what the world was like, how there are many lies and truths”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 73 (Vintage 2003)

“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) http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Epoca/0,6993,EPT1061569-1666-2,00.html, São Paulo, 2005.

“We have an odd relationship with words. We learn a few when we are small, throughout our lives we collect others through education, conversation, our contact with books, and yet, in comparison, there are only a tiny number about whose meaning, sense, and denotation we would have absolutely no doubts if, one day, we were to ask ourselves seriously what they meant. Thus we affirm and deny, thus we convince and are convinced, thus we argue, deduce, and conclude, wandering fearlessly over the surface of concepts about which we have only the vaguest of ideas, and, despite the false air of confidence that we generally affect as we feel our way along the road in the verbal darkness, we manage, more or less, to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other.”

José Saramago book The Double

The Double (2002)

“Nobody performs her or his duties. Governments do not, because they do not know, they are not able or they do not wish, or because they are not permitted by those who effectively govern the world: The multinational and pluricontinental companies whose power — absolutely non-democratic — reduce to next to nothing what is left of the ideal of democracy. We citizens are not fulfilling our duties either. Let us think that no human rights will exist without symmetry of the duties that correspond to them. It is not to be expected that governments in the next 50 years will do it. Let us common citizens therefore speak up. With the same vehemence as when we demanded our rights, let us demand responsibility over our duties. Perhaps the world could turn a little better.”

José Saramago

Nobel Banquet Speech

“I think that we do not deserve life, I think that religions have been and continue to be instruments of domination and death.”

José Saramago

Interview to the newspaper "O Globo", 2009.

“Fate [is] the supreme order to which even gods are subject. And what of men, what is their function. To challenge order, to change fate. For the better. For better or for worse, it makes no difference, the point is to keep fate from being fate.”

José Saramago book The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

O destino é a ordem suprema, a que os próprios deuses aspiram, E os homens, que papel vem a ser o dos homens, Perturbar a ordem, corrigir o destino, Para melhor, Para melhor ou para pior, tanto faz, o que é preciso é impedir que o destino seja destino.
Source: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1993), p. 288

“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. <br class="br">Interview, O Saramago que conheço http://www.portal730.com.br/wellington-borges/o-saramago-que-conheco, Portal 730, 2010.

“Don’t quibble with the king over pears, let him eat the ripe ones and give you the green ones.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 78 (Vintage 2003)

“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 river don’t just have two shores but many, unless each reader is his or own shore, and that shore is the only shore worth reaching”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 60 (Vintage 2003)

“Time is a master of ceremonies who always ends up putting us in our rightful place, we advance, stop and retreat according to his orders, our mistake lies in imagination that we can catch him out.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 115 (Vintage 2003)

“The only time we can talk about death is while we’re alive, not afterwards.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 22 (Vintage 2003)

“By the way, we feel we must mention that death, by herself and alone, with no external help, has always killed far less than mankind has.”

José Saramago book Death with Interruptions

A propósito, não resistiremos a recordar que a morte, por si mesma, sozinha, sem qualquer ajuda externa, sempre matou muito menos que o homem.
Source: Death with Interruptions (2005), p. 117

“That night the blind man dreamt that he was blind.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 15

“Now we live in the empire of oil and money — the rest is disguise.”

José Saramago

ÉPOCA Interview (in Portuguese) http://revistaepoca.globo.com/Epoca/0,6993,EPT1061569-1666-2,00.html, São Paulo, 2005.

“Deep down, I don't create anything. I'm just someone who simply lifts a rock and exposes what's beneath it. It's not my fault that monsters come out some times.”

José Saramago

Eu, no fundo, não invento nada. Sou apenas alguém que se limita a levantar uma pedra e a pôr à vista o que está por baixo. Não é minha culpa se de vez em quando me saem monstros.
Quoted in the article Literatura: Saramago doutor honoris causa da Universidade Autónoma Madrid. Published by Rádio Mirasado. (March 15th, 2007)

“a waiting, stagnant darkness, thick and silent as the ocean deeps”

José Saramago book All the Names

uma escuridão parada à espera, espessa e silenciosa como o fundo do mar
Source: All the Names (1997), p. 107

“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 book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), p. 172

“Human nature is, by definition, a talkative one, imprudent, indiscreet, gossipy, incapable of closing its mouth and keeping it closed.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 117(vintage 2003)

“[…], perhaps that's how you learn, by answering questions.”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), p. 48

“The difficult thing isn't living with other people, it's understanding them.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 284