José Saramago quotes - page 5

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. (José Saramago)
At this time of life even a day makes a difference, the only saving grace is that sometimes things improve. View quote
José Saramago
Worse still if that sameness should ever become total. View quote
José Saramago
To me, the Bible is a book. Important, no doubt, but a book. View quote
José Saramago
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. View quote
José Saramago
What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve over. View quote
José Saramago
The universe has no news of our existence. View quote
José Saramago
Once the machine starts to fly, the heavens will be filled with music. View quote
José Saramago
But there is another way to speak of all this. View quote
José Saramago
Destiny isn't taken in by people trying to make what came first come afterwards. View quote
José Saramago
We humans are, at bottom, carriers of the time, because we take it with us, we use it, sometimes we waste it and sometimes something remains, though everything is doomed to oblivion. (José Saramago)
We would know far more about life's complexities if we applied ourselves to the close study of its contradictions instead of wasting so much time on similarities and connections, which should anyway, be self-explanatory. View quote
José Saramago
It is economic power that determines political power, and governments become the political functionaries of economic power. View quote
José Saramago
I am traveling less in order to be able to write more. I select my travel destinations according to their degree of usefulness to my work. View quote
José Saramago
I had no books at home. I started to frequent a public library in Lisbon. It was there, with no help except curiosity and the will to learn, that my taste for reading developed and was refined. View quote
José Saramago
The world had already changed before September 11. The world has been going through a process of change over the last 20 or 30 years. A civilization ends, another one begins. View quote
José Saramago
Can you imagine what Bush would say if someone like Hugo Chavez asked him for a little piece of land to install a military base, and he only wanted to plant a Venezuelan flag there? View quote
José Saramago
We're not short of movements proclaiming that a different world is possible, but unless we can coordinate them into an international movement, capitalism just laughs at all these little organisations. View quote
José Saramago
Beginning with adolescence, my political formation was oriented in the ideological direction of Marxism. It was natural, being that my thinking was influenced by an atmosphere of active critical resistance. That was the way it was during all of the dictatorship and up to the Revolution of 1974. View quote
José Saramago
A human being is a being who is constantly 'under construction,' but also, in a parallel fashion, always in a state of constant destruction. View quote
José Saramago
Americans have discovered the fragility of life, that ominous fragility that the rest of the world either already experienced or is experiencing now with terrible intensity. (José Saramago)
The U.S. needs to control the Middle East, the gateway to Asia. It already has military installations in Uzbekistan. View quote
José Saramago
The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers. View quote
José Saramago
I am a better novelist than a poet, playwright, or essayist. View quote
José Saramago
I do not just write, I write what I am. If there is a secret, perhaps that is it. View quote
José Saramago