I presume that nobody will deny the positive aspects of the North American cultural world. These are well known to all. But these aspects do not make one forget the disastrous effects of the industrial and commercial process of cultural lamination that the USA is perpetrating on the planet. – Jose Saramago

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