I never appreciated positive heroes in literature. They are almost always cliches, 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. – Jose Saramago
The attitude of insolent haughtiness is characteristic of the relationships Americans form with what is alien to them, with others. – Jose Saramago
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
Being fired was the best luck of my life. It made me stop and reflect. It was the birth of my life as a writer. – Jose Saramago
Some of us may just, in one-on-one conversations with our family, with our friends, over the back fence with our neighbors, talk about the reality of our lives and realize that were not alone, that we have a right to be physically safe and emotionally safe in our own homes. – Patricia Ireland