A writer's definitive death is when no one reads his books anymore. That's the final death. — 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
“Finding these events set down in the history book did not change her mind in the least, all the textbook did was… — José 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
When I am occupied with a work that requires continuity - a novel, for example - I write every day. — 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
“...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
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
I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches, copies of copies, until the model is exhausted. I prefer… — Jose 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
“We have an odd relationship with words. We learn a few when we are small, throughout our lives we collect others through… — José Saramago Copy Share Image
The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers. — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
From literature to ecology, from the escape velocity of galaxies to the greenhouse effect, from garbage disposal methods to traffic jams, everything… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
The possibility of the impossible, dreams and illusions, are the subject of my novels. — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
“The painter paints, the musician makes music, the novelist writes novels. But I believe that we all have some influence, not because… — 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
I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement. Yes, I'm a writer, but I live in this world,… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
I don't think it is worth explaining how a character's nose or chin looks. It is my feeling that readers will prefer… — Jose Saramago Copy Share Image
The wisest man I ever knew in my whole life could not read or write. At four o'clock in the morning, when… — 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
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
“The objectivity of the narrator is a modern invention, we need only reflect that our Lord God didn’t want it in his… — José Saramago Copy Share Image
Sometimes I say that writing a novel is the same as constructing a chair: a person must be able to sit in… — Jose 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
At the end of the 1950s, I started working at a publishing company, Estudios Cor, as production manager, so returning, but not… — Jose 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
...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 Image
