641 Quotes by José Saramago

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.

You know the name you were given, you do not know the name that you have.

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

The wisest man I ever knew in my whole life could not read or write. At four o’clock in the morning, when the promise of a new day still lingered over French lands, he got up from his pallet and left for the fields, taking to pasture the half-dozen pigs whose fertility nourished him and his wife...

Writer’s make national literature, while translators make universal literature.

I presume that nobody will deny the positive aspects of the North American cultural world. These are well known to all. But these aspects do not make one forget the disastrous effects of the industrial and commercial process of ‘cultural lamination’ that the USA is perpetrating on the planet.

I don’t doubt that a man can live perfectly well on his own, but I’m convinced that he begins to die as soon as he closes the door of his house behind him.

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

The only time we can talk about death is while we’re alive, not afterwards.