José Saramago Quotes

The son of Joseph and Mary was born, like any other child, covered with his mother's blood, dripping with mucus, and suffering in silence. He cried because they made him cry, and he will cry for this one and only reason.

I was already at the twentieth section of the book and not very happy with it, when I realised how it could be written. I saw that I would only be able to write it if I did so as if I were actually telling the story. That could not be done by putting so-called oral language into writing, because that's impossible, but by introducing into my writing a mechanism of apparent spontaneity, apparent digression and apparent disorganisation in the discourse. I say 'apparent' since I am only too aware of how much work it took to ensure that it turned out like that.

Everything is discussed in this world, except for one thing: democracy. Democracy is not discussed. Democracy is there, as a kind of saint, from whom no miracles are expected, but that is there as a reference: "the democracy"; and we don’t notice that the democracy in which we live in is a kidnapped, conditioned and amputated one, because the power of the citizen, the power of each one of us, is limited, in the political sphere, I repeat, in the political sphere, to removing a government that we don’t like and replacing it by another one that we might come to like. Nothing else. But the important decisions are made in another sphere, and we all know which one it is. The great international financial organizations, the IMFs, the World Trade Organizations, the World Banks, the OECD, all of these... None of these institutions is democratic, so how can we continue to talk about democracy, if those who actually govern the world are not democratically elected by the people? Who chooses the countries' representatives in those institutions? Their respective peoples? No. So where is the democracy?

Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is.

No one has committed so much sin in his life that he deserves to die twice.

The past is an immense area of stony ground that many people would like to drive across as if it were a motorway, while others move patiently from stone to stone, lifting each one because they need to know what lies beneath. Sometimes scorpions crawl out or centipedes, fat white caterpillars or ripe chrysalises, but it's not impossible that, at least once, an elephant might appear...

(a picture of)a naked woman, although she was covering her pubis with her right hand and her breasts with her left._ _ _ _ covering yourself up like that is worse than showing everything,

There is nothing that is truly free nor democratic enough. Make no mistake, the internet did not come to save the world.

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,

[T]here are times when it is best to be content with what one has, so as not to lose everything.

[...], indeed nothing so tires a person as having to struggle, not with himself, but with an abstraction.

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

Globalization is a form of totalitarianism... It is the rich who rule, and the poor live as they can.

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

Creating is always so much more stimulating than destroying.