Quotes by "José Saramago"

Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat.

Men are all the same, they think that because they came out of the belly of a woman they know all there is to know about women.

Because each of you has his or her own death, you carry it with you in a secret place from the moment you're born, it belongs to you and you belong to it.

The church has never been asked to explain anything, our speciality, along with ballistics, has always been the neutralisation of the overly curious mind through faith.

However hard he tried, he could never manage to make himself visible to human eyes and not because he can't, since for him nothing is impossible, it's simply that he wouldn't know what face to wear when introducing himself to the beings he supposedly created and who probably wouldn't recognize him anyway. There are those who say we're very fortunate that god chooses not to appear before us, because compared with the shock we would get were such a thing to happen, our fear of death would be mere child's play. Besides, all the many things that have been said about god and about death are nothing but stories, and this is just another one.

... we are only ever pretending to ourselves, never to other people ...

Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are a malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth.

Somos cada vez mais, os defeitos que temos, não as qualidades

There are people like Senhor José everywhere, who fill their time, or what they believe to be their spare time, by collecting stamps, coins, medals, vases, postcards, matchboxes, books, clocks, sport shirts, autographs, stones, clay figurines, empty beverage cans, little angels, cacti, opera programmes, lighters, pens, owls, music boxes, bottles, bonsai trees, paintings, mugs, pipes, glass obelisks, ceramic ducks, old toys, carnival masks, and they probably do so out of something that we might call metaphysical angst, perhaps because they cannot bear the idea of chaos being the one ruler of the universe, which is why, using their limited powers and with no divine help, they attempt to impose some order on the world, and for a short while they manage it, but only as long as they are there to defend their collection, because when the day comes when it must be dispersed, and that day always comes, either with their death or when the collector grows weary, everything goes back to its beginnings, everything returns to chaos.

a man was on his way to the gallows when he met another, who asked him: where are you going, my friend? and the condemned man replied: i'm not going anywhere. they're taking me by force.

En su habitación del hotel la muerte, desnuda, está delante del espejo. No sabe quién es.

La esperanza es como la sal, no alimenta pero da sabor al pan.

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.

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

À igreja nunca se lhe pediu que explicasse fosse o que fosse, a nossa outra especialidade, além da balística, tem sido neutralizar, pela fé, o espírito curioso.

Assim é, mas a vantagem da igreja é que, embora às vezes o não pareça, ao gerir o que está no alto, governa o que está em baixo.

شكراً لتجربة الحياة القاسية، المعلم الأساسي لكل الانضباطات

... 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 imagining that we can catch him out.

Quien planta un árbol tampoco sabe si acabará ahorcándose en él

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