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"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."
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"The trouble with Nixon is that he's a serious politics junkie. He's totally hooked and like any other junkie, he's a bummer to have around, especially as President."

"Earthquake means destruction; dictator means destruction! In the case of earthquake, you need a strong building; in the case of dictator, you need an educated rational mind, because an irrational ignorant mind always serves the dictator!"

"In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes!"

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor."

"The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. Many politicians promise green, green grass by blending niceties with delusion and by using alluring confidence tricks. They voice attractive tales and tell things, people like to hear. But the post-factual grassland often appears to be parched and barren. ['The grass was greener over there']"

"Government scientists are commonly as corrupt as the corporate government that employs them."

"Most USA citizens never realize that the systems of public protection are essentially useless until they try to use them. At that point they learn the hard way that government agencies like OSHA, FCC, FDA, police internal affairs, disability, and the like do not work for them."
Explore more quotes by Jose Saramago

"Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt."

"There are times when it is best to be content with what one has, so as not to lose everything."

"What kind of world is this that can send machines to Mars and does nothing to stop the killing of a human being?"

"The period that I could consider the most important in my literary work came about beginning with the Revolution, and in a certain way, developed as a consequence of the Revolution. But it was also a result of the counterrevolutionary coup of November 1975."

"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."

"Can you imagine what Bush would say if someone like Hugo Chavez asked him for a little piece of land to install a military base, and he only wanted to plant a Venezuelan flag there?"

"Look what happened with the employment law in France-the law was withdrawn because the people marched in the streets. I think what we need is a global protest movement of people who won't give up."

"I am the same person I was before receiving the Nobel Prize. I work with the same regularity, I have not modified my habits, I have the same friends."

"In effect I am not a novelist, but rather a failed essayist who started to write novels because he didn't know how to write essays."
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