Quotes from Jose Saramago

Death has no need to be cruel, taking people's lives is more than enough.

A writer's definitive death is when no one reads his books anymore. That's the final death.

The problem is that the right doesn't need any ideas to govern, but the left can't govern without ideas.

Without the faintest possibility of finding a job, I decided to devote myself to literature: it was about time to find out what I was worth as a writer.

Everything in this world can volunteer some reply, what takes up time is posing the questions.

when you are old and realize that time is running out, you start imagining that you have the cure for all the ills of the world in your hand, and get frustrated because no one pays you any attention.

The wise man contents himself with what he has, until such time as he invents something better.

The only time we can talk about death is while we're alive, not afterwards.

There are plenty of reasons not to put up with the world as it is.

It is difficult to understand these people who democratically take part in elections and a referendum, but are then incapable of democratically accepting the will of the people.

The world is governed by institutions that are not democratic - the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO.

Things will be very bad for Latin America. You only have to consider the ambitions and the doctrines of the empire, which regards this region as its backyard.

The attitude of insolent haughtiness is characteristic of the relationships Americans form with what is alien to them, with others.

What kind of world is this that can send machines to Mars and does nothing to stop the killing of a human being?

To continue living, we have to die. That's the story of humanity - generation after generation - that we are going to die. There's nothing dramatic about death except that one loses one's life.

doubt is the privilege of those who have lived a long time

When all is said and done, what is clear is that all lives end before their time.

With the passage of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the color of our blood and the salt of our tears.

If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?

Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.

I am traveling less in order to be able to write more. I select my travel destinations according to their degree of usefulness to my work.

Americans have discovered fear.

Society has to change, but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change. The whole democratic system would have to be rethought.

The attitude of insolent haughtiness is characteristic of the relationships Americans form with what is alien to them, with others.