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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.

Jose Saramago

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Jose Saramago
Age: 87 †
Born: 1922
Born: November 16
Died: 2010
Died: June 18
Chronicler
Diarist
Dramaturge
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico
Jose Saramago
Writer
Literature
Faintest
Jobs
Devote
Find
Findings
Without
Finding
Time
Decided
Possibility
Worth

More quotes by Jose Saramago

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People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich.
Jose Saramago
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I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches, copies of copies, until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity, doubt, uncertainty, not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material, but because that is the way we humans really are.
Jose Saramago
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The ear has to be educated if one wishes to appreciate musical sounds, just as the eyes must learn to distinguish the value of words.
Jose Saramago
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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.
Jose Saramago
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... that's how life should be, when one person loses heart, the other must have heart and courage enough for both.
Jose Saramago
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Death is present every day in our lives. It's not that I take pleasure in the morbid fascination of it, but it is a fact of life.
Jose Saramago
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...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 we escape from ourselves you mean, No, that's not the same thing.
Jose Saramago
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The church has never been asked to explain anything, our speciality, along with ballistics, has always been the neutralisation of the overly curious mind through faith.
Jose Saramago
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One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.
Jose Saramago
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If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?
Jose Saramago
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What kind of world is this that can send machines to Mars and does nothing to stop the killing of a human being?
Jose Saramago
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Each part in itself constitutes the whole to which it belongs.
Jose Saramago
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I always ask two questions: How many countries have military bases in the United States? And in how many countries does the United States not have military bases?
Jose Saramago
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Forgive me if what has seemed little to you, to me is all.
Jose Saramago
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The beginning is never the clear, precise end of a thread, the beginning is a long, painfully slow process that requires time and patience in order to find out in which direction it is heading, a process that feels its way along the path ahead like a blind man the beginning is just the beginning, what came before is nigh on worthless.
Jose Saramago
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I don't doubt that a man can live perfectly well on his own, but I'm convinced that he begins to die as soon as he closes the door of his house behind him.
Jose Saramago
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Though I had come into the world on 16 November 1922, my official documents show that I was born two days later, on the 18th. It was thanks to this petty fraud that my family escaped from paying the fine for not having registered my birth at the proper legal time.
Jose Saramago
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For human words are like shadows, and shadows are incapable of explaining light and between shadow and light there is the opaque body from which words are born.
Jose Saramago
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We all have our moments of weakness, just as well that we are still capable of weeping, tears are often our salvation, there are times when we would die if we did not weep - Blindness
Jose Saramago
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People might ask me, What do you propose instead? I propose nothing. I am a mere novelist, I just write about the world as I see it. It is not my job to transform it. I cannot transform it all by myself, and I wouldn't even know how to. I limit myself to saying what I believe the world to be.
Jose Saramago