A writer's definitive death is when no one reads his books anymore. That's the final death. — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
When I am occupied with a work that requires continuity - a novel, for example - I write every day. — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
I do not just write, I write what I am. If there is a secret, perhaps that is it. — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
I write to try to understand, and because I have nothing better to do. — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
That is the dream of all novelists-that one of their characters will become 'somebody.' — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
If you don't write your books, nobody else will do it for you. No one else has lived your life. — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
I had no books at home. I started to frequent a public library in Lisbon. It was there, with no help except… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
In effect I am not a novelist, but rather a failed essayist who started to write novels because he didn't know how… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
“A writer is just like anyone else, he cannot know everything, nor can he experience everything, he must ask and imagine,” — José Saramago Copy Share Image
A writer is a man like any other: he dreams. And my dream was to be able to say of this book,… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
There are plenty of reasons not to put up with the world as it is, and if the book has any kind… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
Without the faintest possibility of finding a job, I decided to devote myself to literature: it was about time to find out… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
I consider books to be good for our health, and also our spirits, and they help us to become poets or scientists,… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
For me, writing is a job. I do not separate the work from the act of writing like two things that have… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
In the end, I am quite normal. I don't have odd habits. I don't dramatize. Above all, I do not romanticize the… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
People might ask me, What do you propose instead? I propose nothing. I am a mere novelist, I just write about the… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
Some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
For me, writing is a job. I do not separate the work from the act of writing like two things that have… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
I think the novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
“A letter is a most hazardous business, the written word allows no indecision, either distance or familiarity will emphasize the tone the… — José Saramago Copy Share Image
“What does reading do, You can learn almost everything from reading, But I read too, So you must know something, Now I'm… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
Every novel is like this, desperation, a frustrated attempt to save something of the past. Except that it still has not been… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
“...indeed it is in the General Cemetery that the results of progress are set out before the eyes of the studious or… — José Saramago Copy Share Image
“We are born, and at that moment, it is as if we had signed a pact for the rest of our life, but a… — José Saramago Copy Share
It takes little or nothing to undo reputations, the merest trifle makes and remakes them, it is simply a question of finding the best… — Jose Saramago Copy Share
With the passage of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the color of… — Jose Saramago Copy Share
“E se as histórias para crianças passassem a ser de leitura obrigatória para os adultos? Seriam eles capazes de aprender realmente o que há… — José Saramago Copy Share
“the inmates of the second ward in the right wing have decided, at long last, to bury their dead, at least we shall be… — José Saramago Copy Share
“Stretching one arm behind him, the man passed his hand over the horse's coat, his own skin transformed, or skin which had transformed into… — José Saramago Copy Share
...you have to leave the island in order to see the island, that we can't see ourselves unless we become free of ourselves, Unless… — Jose Saramago Copy Share
anyone who gets up early by inclination or has been forced to rise early out of necessity finds it intolerable that others should go… — Jose Saramago Copy Share
Society has to change, but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change. The whole democratic system… — Jose Saramago Copy Share
“... aborrece os odores nocturnos, aquelas expansões do corpo a que nem poetas escapam".” — José Saramago Copy Share
