Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Jose Saramago (Portuguese Novelist)

José Saramago (1922–2010,) fully José de Sousa Saramago, was a Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright, and journalist. This winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature is celebrated for his famous works regarding heavyweight themes, including Portugal’s troubled political identity.

Born into a low-income family of landless peasants in the small village of Azinhaga, Ribatejo Province, Saramago attended trade school and worked as a car mechanic for several years. He also worked as a drafter, publisher’s reader, freelance translator, and editor at a publishing house.

Saramago’s first book, Terra do Pecado (1947; Land of Sin,) was published when he was 24, but it was not a success, and he stopped writing fiction for the next 30 years. He became an international success with the publication of Memorial do Convento (1982; Baltasar and Blimunda, 1988,) a love story set in 18th-century Portugal.

An atheist and communist, Saramago was a persistent critic of successive Portuguese governments. His O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo (1991; The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, 1991) caused controversy for its perceived anti-Catholicism. After Portugal’s government excluded his novel from consideration for a literary prize, he went into self-imposed exile and moved to the Canary Islands.

Saramago’s big international success came with Ensaio sobre a Cegueira (1995; Blindness, 1997) about a mysterious disease that causes all the people in a city to lose sight. A year later, in 1998, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. His other novels include Todos os Nomes (1997; All the Names, 1999,) O Homem Duplicado (2002; The Double, 2004,) and Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (2004; Seeing, 2006.)

Saramago’s literary style featured long sentences—often more than a page long. He also wrote poetry, plays, and several volumes of essays and short stories. His memoirs include As pequenas memórias (2006; Small Memories.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Jose Saramago

As citizens, we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved – it’s the citizen who changes things.
Jose Saramago
Topics: Obligation

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.
Jose Saramago
Topics: Language

Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts.
Jose Saramago

The difficult thing isn’t living with other people, it’s understanding them.
Jose Saramago

I am traveling less in order to be able to write more. I select my travel destinations according to their degree of usefulness to my work
Jose Saramago
Topics: Usefullness

Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.
Jose Saramago

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