José Saramago

“A solidão não é viver só, a solidão é não sermos capazes de fazer companhia a alguém ou a alguma coisa que está dentro de nós, a solidão não é uma árvore no meio duma planície onde só ela esteja, é a distância entre a seiva profunda e a casca, entre a folha e a raiz.”

“A quien tal vez no veamos más, o tal vez sí, porque la vida se ríe de las perversiones y pone palabras donde imaginábamos silencios y súbitos regresos cuando pensábamos que no volveríamos a encontrarnos.”

“You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives.”

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

“We are so afraid of the idea of having to die… that we always try to find excuses for the dead, as if we were asking beforehand to be excused when it is our turn…”

“...the human being to lack that second skin we call egoism has not yet been born, it lasts much longer than the other one, that bleeds so readily.”

“(...) o espírito não vai a lado nenhum sem as pernas do corpo, e o corpo não seria capaz de mover-se se lhe faltassem as asas do espírito.”

“jhdjfjhglivj;z”

“Confidential matters are not dealt with over the telephone, you'd better come here in person. I cannot leave the house, Do you mean you're ill, Yes, I'm ill, the blind man said after a pause. In that case you ought to call a doctor, a real doctor, quipped the functionary, and, delighted with his own wit, he rang off.The man's insolence was like a slap in the face. Only after some minutes had passed, had he regained enough composure to tell his wife how rudely he had been treated. Then, as if he had discovered something that he should have known a long time ago, he murmured sadly, This is the stuff we're made of, half indifference and half malice.”

“I have yet to hear a single idea that was worth considering for longer than it took us to listen to it.”

“Even death, faced with the option of death or life, she would choose life.”

“Os momentos não chegam nunca tarde nem cedo, chegam à hora deles, não temos de agradecer-lhes as coincidências, quando ocorram, entre o que tinham para propor e o que nós necessitávamos.”

“... time is a master of ceremonies who always ends up putting us in our rightful place, we advance, stop, and retreat according to his orders, our mistake lies in imagining that we can catch him out.”

“la historia de los hombres es la historia de sus desencuentros con dios, ni él nos entiende a nosotros ni nosotros lo entendemos a él.”

“Non si puo' mai sapere in anticipo di cosa siano capaci le persone, bisogna aspettare, dar tempo al tempo, e' il tempo che comanda, il tempo e' il compagno che sta giocando di fronte a noi, e ha in mano tutte le carte del mazzo, a noi ci tocca inventarci le briscole con la vita, la nostra”

“Mi arte consiste en intentar mostrar que no existe diferencia entre lo imaginario y lo vivido. Lo vivido podría imaginarse y al contrario.”

“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 him. ("The Centaur")”

“There are such moments in life, when, in order for heaven to open, it is necessary for a door to close.”

“... we are only ever pretending to ourselves, never to other people ...”

“A person is not like a thing that you put down in one place and leave, a person moves, thinks, asks, questions, doubts, investigates, probes, and while it is true that, out of a long habit of resignation, he sooner or later ends up looking as if he has submitted to the objects, don't go thinking that this apparent submission is necessarily permanent.”

“Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt. Some say that the main cause of this very serious difficulty lies in the fact that human beings are basically made of clay, which, as the encyclopedias helpfully explain, is a detrital sedimentary rock made up of tiny mineral fragments measuring one two hundred and fifty-sixths of a millimeter. Until now, despite long linguistic study, no one has managed to come up with a name for this.”

“...sleep is a skilled magician, it changes the proportions of things, the distances between them, it separates people and they're lying next to each other, brings them together and they can barely see one another...”

“... that's how life should be, when one person loses heart, the other must have heart and courage enough for both.”

“The worst pain ... isn't the pain you feel at the time, it's the pain you feel later on when there's nothing you can do about it, They say that time heals all wounds, But we never live long enough to test that theory ...”

“À igreja nunca se lhe pediu que explicasse fosse o que fosse, a nossa outra especialidade, além da balística, tem sido neutralizar, pela fé, o espírito curioso.”

“Assim é, mas a vantagem da igreja é que, embora às vezes o não pareça, ao gerir o que está no alto, governa o que está em baixo.”

“... the best way of killing a rose is to force it open when it is still only the promise of a bud.”

“Indeed, very few people are aware that in each of our fingers, located somewhere between the first phalange, the mesophalange, and the metaphalange, there is a tiny brain. The fact is that the other organ which we call the brain, the one with which we came into the world, the one which we transport around in our head and which transports us so that we can transport it, has only ever had very general, vague, diffuse and, above all, unimaginative ideas about what the hands and fingers should do. For example, if the brain-in-our-head suddenly gets an idea for a painting, a sculpture, a piece of music or literature, or a clay figurine, it simply sends a signal to that effect and then waits to see what will happen”

“...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.”

“Fortunately, as human history has shown, it is not unusual for good to come of evil, less is said about the evil that can come out of good”

“Quien planta un árbol tampoco sabe si acabará ahorcándose en él”

“Toda a minha obra pode ser entendida como uma reflexão sobre o erro. Sim, sobre o erro como verdade instalada e por isso suspeitosa, sobre o erro como deturpação intencional de factos, sobre o erro como ilusão dos sentidos e da mente, mas também sobre o erro como ponto necessário para chegar ao conhecimento.”

“Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are a malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth.”

“É bem certo que o difícil não é viver com as pessoas, o difícil é compreendê-las.”

“The painter paints, the musician makes music, the novelist writes novels. But I believe that we all have some influence, not because of the fact that one is an artist, but because we are citizens. As citizens, we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved, it's the citizen who changes things. I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement.”

“Os bons e os maus resultados dos nossos ditos e obras vão-se distribuindo, supõe-se que de uma forma bastante uniforme e equilibrada, por todos os dias do futuro, incluindo aqueles infindáveis, em que já cá não estaremos para poder comprová-lo, para congratular-nos ou pedir perdão, aliás, há que diga que isso é que é a imortalidade.”

“I never appreciated "positive heroes" in literature. They are almost always clichesو,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.”

“La ceguera también es esto, vivir en un mundo donde se ha acabado la esperanza”

“La mayor dificultad para poder vivir razonablemente en el infierno es el hedor que hay allí.”

“Ci sono momenti così, crediamo nell’importanza di ciò che abbiamo detto o scritto fino a quel punto, soltanto perché non è stato possibile far tacere i suoni o cancellare i tratti, ma ci entra nel corpo la tentazione del silenzio, il fascino dell’immobilità, stare come stanno gli déi, zitti e tranquilli, solo ad assistere.”

“(...) talvez por acreditar no senso comum que teima em afirmar que quanto mais as desgraças se temem menos acontecem, Se isto assim é, então o homem está condenado, por seu próprio interesse, ao pessimismo eterno, como caminho para a felicidade, e talvez, perseverando, atinja a imortalidade pela via do simples medo de morrer.”

“Para qué sirve el arrepentimiento si eso no borra nada de lo que ha pasado. El arrepentimiento mejor es sencillamente cambiar”

“è strano come la memoria possa ingannarci così, In questo caso è comprensibile, sentiamo più nostro quanto ci è offerto spontaneamente che non quello che abbiamo dovuto conquistare.”

“Cuando apreté aquel cántaro contra el pecho, realmente era necesario que fueras hombre para no comprender que te estaba apretando a ti”

“El error también puede ser la consecuencia de haber pensado bien, aparte de eso, no está escrito en ninguna parte que precipitarse tenga que acarrear forzosamente malos resultados.”

“Aunque lo parezca, no fingimos ante los otros, fingimos ante nosotros mismos”

“Además no todo tiene que suceder mañana, hay cosas que sólo pasado mañana”

“Es una estupidez perder el presente sólo por el miedo de no llegar a ganar el futuro”

“Dentro di noi c'è una cosa che non ha nome, e quella cosa è ciò che siamo”

“A vida podia ser apenas estar sentado na erva, segurar um malmequer e não lhe arrancar as pétalas, por serem já sabidas as respostas, ou por serem estas de tão pouca importância que descobri-las não valeria a vida de uma flor.”