José Saramago

ere are some quotes from the very recently departed Portuguese Nobel Prize winner José Saramago

1) "The best portrait of what I am was written by Gramsci: 'Pessimist of dint of reason, optimist by dint of will' That says it all".

2) " The same thing happens to me with people as happens with women in my novels. I make them better than they are in life because I continue feeding the hope that some day they will take that next step."

3) "The world needs a different way of understanding human relations. It is what I call the ethical insurrection".

4) "Newspapers are words, They don't have anything to do with reality"

5) "I don't know what to say other than I have done all that I have done with the fullest consciousness that I was expressing myself as a human being seeking to describe his identity. I need to find out what the hell I am doing here, in life and in the light of society and history"

6) If God doesn't exist, Jesus can't be his son. Therefore all of "his" civilization, the so-called Judeo-Christian one, is based on nothing. "