José Saramago Quotes

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

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

Orientamo-nos por normas geradas segundo consensos, e domínios, mete-se pelos olhos dentro que variando o domínio varia o consenso, Não deixas saída, Porque não há saída, vivemos num quarto fechados e pintamos o mundo e o universo nas paredes dele.

No life is without its lies.

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

Um dia, sentado à mesa, pensei: E se fôssemos todos cegos? Imediatamente me veio a resposta: Nós somos todos cegos.

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

The doctor's wife reads the street signs as she goes along, she remembers some of them, others not at all, and there comes a moment when she realises that she has lost her way. There is no doubt, she is lost. She took a turning, then another, she no longer remembers the streets or their names, then in her distress, she sat down on the filthy ground, thick with black mud, and, drained of any strength, of all strength, she burst into tears. The dogs gathered round her, sniffed at the bags, but without much conviction, as if their hour for eating had passed, one of them licks her face, perhaps it had been used to drying tears ever since it was a puppy. The woman strokes its head, runs her hand down its drenched back, and she weeps the rest of her tears embracing the dog.

Em profunda escuridão se procuraram, nus, sôfrego entrou nela, ela o recebeu ansiosa, depois a sofreguidão dela, a ânsia dele, enfim os corpos encontrados, os movimentos, a voz que vem do ser profundo, aquele que não tem voz, o grito nascido, prolongado, interrompido, o soluço seco, a lágrima inesperada, e a máquina a tremer, a vibrar, porventura não está já na terra, rasgou a cortina de silvas e enleios, pairou no alto da noite, entre as nuvens, pesa o corpo dele sobre o dela, e ambos pesam sobre a terra, afinal estão aqui, foram e voltaram.

A man must read widely, a little of everything or whatever he can, but given the shortness of life and the verbosity of the world, not too much should be demanded of him. Let him begin with those titles no one should omit, commonly referred to as books for learning, as if not all books were for learning, and this list will vary according to the fount of knowledge one drinks from and the authority that monitors its flow.

Be content to bless each other, that is all the blessing you need, and how I wish that all blessings were so.

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.

Creating is always so much more stimulating than destroying.

The universe has no news of our existence.

The caressing, melodious tones of humility and flattery never sang in the ears of the clerk Senhor José, these have never had a place in the chromatic scale of feelings normally shown to him.