Quotes from book
Blindness

Name: Blindness
Author: José Saramago

José SaramagoOriginal title Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Portuguese, 1995)

Blindness is a novel by Portuguese author José Saramago. It is one of his most famous novels, along with The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Baltasar and Blimunda. In 1998, Saramago received the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Blindness was one of his works noted by the committee when announcing the award.

“Blind people do not need a name, I am my voice, nothing else matters.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 290

“If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Se não formos capazes de viver inteiramente como pessoas, ao menos façamos tudo para não viver inteiramente como animais.
Source: Blindness (1995), p. 116

“Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 326

“If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?”

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 290

“If you can see, look. If you can look, observe.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Se podes olhar, vê. Se podes ver, repara.
Epigraph
Blindness (1995)

“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 book Blindness

Um dia, sentado à mesa, pensei: E se fôssemos todos cegos? Imediatamente me veio a resposta: Nós somos todos cegos.
On the idea for his next novel (Blindness), which came to him while sitting in a restaurant; New York Times interview with Alan Riding (1998), as quoted in Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies, 6th Edition (Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 2001), p. 131.

“How are you, doctor, that is what we say when we do not wish to play the weakling, we say Fine, even though we may be dying, and this is commonly known as taking one's courage in both hands, a phenomenon that has only been observed in the human species.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 32

“Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are.”

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 126

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

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 15

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

José Saramago book Blindness

Source: Blindness (1995), p. 284