Quotes by Jose Saramago

About Jose Saramago:

José de Sousa Saramago was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the greatest living novelist" and considers him to be "a permanent part of the Western canon", while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant."
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A man must earn his daily bread by some means some-where, and if his bread fails to nourish his soul, at least his body will be nourished while his soul suffers.

Jose Saramago

The threat of rain appears to have nothing to do with Joao Elvas's desire to be alone, and one must not forget that, strange as it may seem, some men can spend their entire life alone and enjoy solitude, especially if it is raining and their crust is...

Jose Saramago

Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.

Jose Saramago

Evidentemente, muitos destes cegos estao a ser pisados, empurrados, esmurrados, é o efeito do pânico, um efeito natural, pode-se dizer, a natureza animal é mesmo assim, também a vegetal se comportaria de igual maneira se nao tivesse todas aquelas...

Jose Saramago

If, before every action, we were to begin by weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probable, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where o...

Jose Saramago

We are so afraid of the idea of having to die… that we always try to find excuses for the dead, as if we were asking beforehand to be excused when it is our turn…

Jose Saramago

The trouble with this dog is that it has grown too close to human beings, it will suffer as they do.

Jose Saramago

...the human being to lack that second skin we call egoism has not yet been born, it lasts much longer than the other one, that bleeds so readily.

Jose Saramago

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

Jose Saramago

You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning c...

Jose Saramago

Proclamava-se ali o fim do mundo, a salvação penitencial, a visão do sétimo dia, o advento do anjo, a colisão cósmica, a extinção do sol, o espírito da tribo, a seiva da mandrágora, o unguento do tigre, a virtude do signo, a disciplina do v...

Jose Saramago

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

Jose Saramago

Ainda que esse instante de gozo supremo pudesse durar-vos a vida inteira, nunca os dois que sois poderíeis chegar a ser um só.

Jose Saramago

Virtue, should there be anyone who still ignores the fact, always finds pitfalls on the extremely difficult path of perfection, but sin and vice are so favoured by fortune...

Jose Saramago

Estoy de paso, había dicho el escritor, y estas son las señales que iba dejando al pasar.

Jose Saramago

You have no idea what it is like to watch two blind people fighting. Fighting has always been, more or less, a form of blindness.

Jose Saramago

The attitude of insolent haughtiness is characteristic of the relationships Americans form with what is alien to them, with others.

Jose Saramago

..then he added, as if requiring a response to his own remark, 'Probably the greater the difference, the greater the similarity, and the greater the similarity, the greater the difference,' at that moment he did not yet know how right he was.

Jose Saramago

old photographs are very deceiving, they give us the illusion that we are alive in them, and it's not true, the person we are looking at no longer exists, and if that person could see us, he or she would not recognise him -- or herself in us, 'Who's ...

Jose Saramago

Contrary to what is generally believed, meaning and sense were never the same thing, meaning shows itself at once, direct, literal, explicit, enclosed in itself, univocal, if you like, while sense cannot stay still, it seethes with second, third and ...

Jose Saramago

Author Bio

  • NameJose Saramago
  • DescriptionPortuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature
  • BornNovember 16, 1922
  • DiedJune 18, 2010
  • CountryPortugal
  • ProfessionJournalist; Playwright; Translator; Novelist; Poet; Chronicler; Essayist; Diarist; Literary Critic; Writer
  • WorksThe Gospel According To Jesus Christ; Blindness; Seeing; Death With Interruptions; Cain
  • AwardsNobel Prize In Literature; Camões Prize; America Award In Literature