José Saramago Quotes

A human being is a being who is constantly 'under construction,' but also, in a parallel fashion, always in a state of constant destruction.

This is neither the time nor the place, however, to ponder how often the soul, in order to be able to boast of a clean body, has burdened itself with sadness, envy, and impurity.

... that's how life should be, when one person loses heart, the other must have heart and courage enough for both.

Time and time again one has seen, even in people not particularly given to reflection, that the best way of finding a solution is to let one’s thoughts drift until the right moment comes to pounce, like a tiger taking its prey by surprise.

He could see perfectly well that "it," his life, was leading nowhere, that he wss behaving like a miser who hoards gold simply for the pleasure of looking at it, except that in his case it wssn't gold but experience, which was the one thing he took from life. And yet experience, unless applied to something, is just like that hoard of gold, for it neither produces nor bears fruit and is utterly useless. There is no point in a man accumulating experience the way someone else might collect stamps.

..there are times when it is best to be content with what one has, so as not to lose everything.

... that destiny has to make many turnings before arriving anywhere, destiny alone knows what it has cost ...

Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is.