José Saramago Quotes

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.

Lord knows why they depict death with wings when death is everywhere.

Creating is always so much more stimulating than destroying.

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

The best way to killing a rose is to force it open when it is still only the promise of a bud.

It’s is the old who age a day every hour,

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

After all, we are always on time, behind time, in time, but never out of time, no matter how often we are told that we are.

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,

The emptiness of old age had caused him to forget that, in matters of feeling and of the heart, too much is always better than too little.

Age carries with it a double load of guilt,

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

Very few people are aware that in each of our fingers, located somewhere between the firs phalange, the mesophalange and the metaphalange, there is a tiny brain. [...] It should be noted that fingers are without brains, these develop gradually with the passage of time and with the help of what the eyes see…. That is why the fingers have always excelled at uncovering what is concealed.

… because contrary to what people say, two weaknesses don't make for a still greater weakness, but for renewed strength ...

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.