A biography for Jose Saramagohasn’t been written yet.
“Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.”
“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.”
“I was born in a family of landless peasants, in Azinhaga, a small village in the province of Ribatejo, on the right bank of the Almonda River, around a hundred kilometres north-east of Lisbon.”
“Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is.”
“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?”
“Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt.”
“The world is governed by institutions that are not democratic - the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO.”
“I am not a prophet.”
“I do not just write, I write what I am. If there is a secret, perhaps that is it.”
“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.”
“The world had already changed before September 11. The world has been going through a process of change over the last 20 or 30 years. A civilization ends, another one begins.”
“The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers.”
“Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts.”
“I think we are blind. Blind people who can see, but do not see.”
“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.”
“What kind of world is this that can send machines to Mars and does nothing to stop the killing of a human being?”
“Look what happened with the employment law in France-the law was withdrawn because the people marched in the streets. I think what we need is a global protest movement of people who won't give up.”
“I am a better novelist than a poet, playwright, or essayist.”