Quotessence
Home / Books / Death with Interruptions

Death with Interruptions

Book by José Saramago · 4 quotes · Death, Religion, Words

Filter quotes by topic

AllDeathReligionWordsLanguageLifeMuerteAiutoAmoreAristocracyBestChangeChurchContradictionsCreationCurrent AffairsDeath With InterruptionsDyingEditorialEphemeralityFamiglia

Death with Interruptions Quotes

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image