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. . . if there is a way for the world to be transformed for the better, it can only be done by pessimism optimists will never change the world for the better.

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
Transformed
Change
Better
Done
Way
Never
Optimists
World
Pessimism
Optimist

More quotes by 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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For me, writing is a job. I do not separate the work from the act of writing like two things that have nothing to do with each other. I arrange words one after another, or one in front of another, to tell a story, to say something that I consider important or useful, or at least important or useful to me. It is nothing more than this.
Jose Saramago
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Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered
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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...we confidently say that it's not worth trying to reach any conclusions merely because we decide to stop halfway along the path that would lead us straight to them.
Jose Saramago
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It is economic power that determines political power, and governments become the political functionaries of economic power.
Jose Saramago
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The only miracle we can perform is to go on living, said the woman, to preserve the fragility of life from day to day, as if it were blind and did not know where to go, and perhaps it is like that, perhaps it really does not know, it placed itself in our hands, after giving us intelligence.
Jose Saramago
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A stomach accustomed to hunger is satisfied with very little.
Jose Saramago
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The attitude of insolent haughtiness is characteristic of the relationships Americans form with what is alien to them, with others.
Jose Saramago
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Life is like that, full of words that are not worth saying or that were worth saying once but not any more, each word that we utter will take up the space of another more deserving word, not deserving in its own right, but because of the possible consequences of saying it.
Jose Saramago
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...this is the way fate usually treats us, it's right there behind us, it has already reached out a hand to touch us on the shoulder while we're still muttering to ourselves, It's all over, that's it, who cares anyhow.
Jose Saramago
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I don't think it is worth explaining how a character's nose or chin looks. It is my feeling that readers will prefer to construct, little by little, their own character—the author will do well to entrust the reader with this part of the work.
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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We've all had our moments of weakness, and if we manage to get through today without any, we'll be sure to have some tomorrow.
Jose Saramago
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There is relationship between sight and touch, something about eyes being able to see through the fingers touching the clay, about fingers being able to feel what the eyes are seeing without the fingers actually touching it.
Jose Saramago
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As my cat would say, all hours are good for sleeping.
Jose Saramago
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I had no books at home. I started to frequent a public library in Lisbon. It was there, with no help except curiosity and the will to learn, that my taste for reading developed and was refined.
Jose Saramago
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There is nothing healthier for a man than to walk on his own two legs.
Jose Saramago
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If I could repeat my childhood, I would repeat it exactly as it was, with the poverty, the cold, little food, with the flies and pigs, all that.
Jose Saramago
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Dignity has no price ... when someone starts making small concessions, in the end life loses all meaning.
Jose Saramago