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José Saramago Biography

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“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. The religious delegates did not bother to protest. On the contrary, one of them, a highly regarded member of the catholic sector, said, You're absolutely right, my dear philosopher, that, of course, is why we exist, so that people will spend their entire life with fear hanging round their neck, and then when their time comes, they will then welcome death as a liberation,”

DeathReligionFearDying
Book:Death with Interruptions
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“War ate a great a great deal and war grew fat and rich. War is a monster who empties men's pockets, coin by coin, before devouring the men themselves, so that nothing is lost and all is changed, which is the primary law of nature, as one learns later on. And when war has eaten its fill, when it is sated to the point of vomiting it, it continues its skillful pickpocketing, always taking from the same people, the same pockets. It's a habit acquired in peacetime.”

WarPoverty
Book:Levantado do Chão
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“Λένε ότι απαισιόδοξος είναι ένας ενημερωμένος αισιόδοξος, και ότι ο ανενημέρωτος αισιόδοξος είναι απλώς ένας ηλίθιος. Οι πληροφορίες που έχουμε καθημερινά μας αναγκάζουν να είμαστε απαισιόδοξοι. Ο Γκράμσι έλεγε να είμαστε απαισιόδοξοι στη λογική μας και αισιόδοξοι στη βούλησή μας. Εγώ είμαι με τον Γκράμσι.”

OptimismPessimism
Author:José Saramago
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“The distribution of tasks amongst the various employees follows a simple rule, which is that the duty of the members of each category is to do as much work as they possibly can, so that only a small part of that work need be passed to the category above. This means the clerks are obliged to work without cease from morning to night, whereas senior clerks do so only now and then, the deputies very rarely, and the Registrar almost never.”

WorkEmploymentExploitationHierarchy
Book:All the Names
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“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.”

LifeGodDeathCreation
Book:Death with Interruptions
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“She didn't much care if it was or wasn't the musical portrait of the cellist, it's likely that he'd fabricated in his mind any alleged similarities, real or imagined, but what impressed death was that she seemed to hear in those fifty-eight seconds of music a rhythmical and melodic transposition of every and any human life, be it run-of-the-mill or extraordinary, because of its tragic brevity, its desperate intensity, and also because of that final chord, like an ellipsis left hanging in the air, something yet to be said. The cellist had fallen into one of the least forgivable of human sins, that of presumption, when he thought he could see his face, and his alone, in a portrait in which everyone could be found, a presumption which, however, if we think about it, if we choose not to remain on the surface of things, could equally be interpreted as a manifestation of its polar opposite, that is, of humility, since if it is a portrait of everyone, then I must be included in it too.”

LifeDeathHumanityMusicHumility
Book:Death with Interruptions
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“Ah, but life is a game too, a playful exercise, playing is a very serious, grave, even philosophical act, for children, it's part of growing up, for adults it's a link with their childhood, advantageous for some. Whole libraries of books have been written on the subject, all of them solid, weighty tomes, only a fool could fail to be convinced. The mistake lies in thinking that such profundity can be found only in books, when in fact a quick glance, a moment's attention, is all it takes to see how the cat plays with the mouse, and how the latter is eaten by the former. The question, the only one that matters, is knowing who exploits the initial innocence of the games, this game that was never innocent, for example, when the foreman says to the workers, Let's run, and see who gets there last, And the innocents, blind to the obvious deceit, run, trot, gallop, stagger from Monte Lavre to Vale de Cães, merely for the glory of arriving first or for the smug satisfaction of not being last. Because the last man, well, someone always has to be last, will have to put up with the jeers and mockery of the winners, who are already panting and breathless, they haven't even started work yet but the poor fools waste their breath on this explosion of scorn.”

Life Philosophy
Book:Levantado do Chão
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“It will no longer be necessary to leave one's own home in order to find work in the surrounding districts, which means spending week after week away from home, for no matter how restless a fellow might be, his own home, if he has a wife he respects and children he loves, has the same satisfying taste as bread, a man's home is not for all hours, but he soon begins to miss it if he does not go back there every day.”

LoveHomeFamilyWanderlustHomesickness
Book:Baltasar and Blimunda
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“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 our first thought brought us to a halt. The good and the evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much-talked-of immortality, Possibly,”

True
Book:Blindness
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“The only difference between life and death is that the living still have time, but the time to say that one word, to make that one gesture, is running out for them. What gesture, what word, I don't know, a man dies from not having said it, from not having made it, this is what he dies of, not from sickness, and that is why, when dead, he finds it so difficult to accept death. (Jose Saramago, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, p 122)”

LifeDeathFailureSalvationWordsRedemptionAbsurdity
Book:The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
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“Somewhat less appropriate was the blast that came from the loudspeaker, recently it had spoken on certain days, on others not at all, but always at the same time, as had been promised, clearly there was a timer in the transmitter which at the precise moment started up the recorded tape, the reason why it should have broken down from time to time we are never likely to know, these are matters for the outside world, it is in any case serious enough, insofar as it muddled up the calendar, the so-called counting of the days, which some blind men, natural obsessives, or lovers of order, which is a moderate form of obsession, had tried scrupulously to follow by making little knots in a piece of string...”

Obsession
Book:Blindness
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“Τελείωσε το φαγητό του, πέταξε το υγρό και παγωμένο χάρτινο σακουλάκι στον κάδο των σκουπιδιών, έπλυνε το φλιτζάνι και, με το κουζινομάχαιρο στο χέρι, μάζεψε τα ψίχουλα που είχαν πέσει στο τραπέζι. Το έκανε συγκεντρωμένα για να κρατήσει τις σκέψεις του σε απόσταση και να τις αφήσει να περάσουν μία μία, αφού πρώτα τις έχει ρωτήσει τι είχαν μέσα, γιατί με τις σκέψεις κάθε προφύλαξη είναι λίγη, μερικές μας εμφανίζονται μ' ένα γλυκό ύφος υποκριτικής αθωότητας κι αμέσως, πολύ αργά όμως, εκδηλώνονται πόσο κακοήθεις είναι.”

SeeingThoughtsSaramago
Book:Seeing
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“Samoća nije živeti sam, samoća je kad nismo sposobni da pravimo društvo nekome ili nečemu što se nalazi duboko u nama, samoća nije usamljeno drvo nasred puste ravnice, to je rastojanje između skrivenih sokova i kore, između lista i korena. Vi bulaznite, sve to što pominjete međusobno je povezano, nema tu nikakve samoće, U redu, pustimo sad drvo, nego se zagledajte u sebe, i naći ćete samoću, Kao što reče onaj drugi, hodati usamljen kroz gomilu, Još gore od toga, biti usamljen tamo gde ni nas samih nema, Danas ste užasno raspoloženi, Imam i ja svoje loše trenutke, Nisam ja govorio o toj samoći, nego o drugoj, onoj koja nas prati, podnošljivoj, onoj koja nam pravi društvo, Čak i nju ne možemo uvek da podnesemo, vapimo za nečijim prisustvom, nekim glasom, a ponekad taj isti glas i to isto prisustvo služe jedino zato da učine samoću još nepodnošljivijom.”

LonelinessSolitude
Book:The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
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“C’est ma faute, pleurait-elle, et c’était la vérité, impossible de le nier, mais il était vrai aussi, si cela pouvait lui servir de consolation, que si avant chaque acte nous nous mettions à y réfléchir sérieusement, à en prévoir toutes les conséquences, d’abord les conséquences immédiates, puis les conséquences probables, puis les conséquences éventuelles, puis les conséquences imaginables, nous n’arriverions jamais à bouger de l’endroit où la première pensée nous aurait cloués sur place.”

Life LessonsChoices
Book:Blindness
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“Yes, My Son, man is a piece of wood, that can be used for everything, from the moment he’s born until the moment he dies, he’s always ready to obey, send him there and he goes, tell him to halt and he stops, tell him to turn back and he retreats, whether in peace or in war, man, generally speaking, is the best thing that could have happened to the gods, And the wood from which I’m made, since I’m a man, what use will it be put to, since I’m Your son, You will be the spoon I shall dip into humanity and bring out laden with men who shall believe in the new god I intend to become, Laden with men You will devour, There’s no need for Me to devour those who devour themselves.”

GodReligionMankind
Author:José Saramago
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