Death With Interruptions

by José Saramago

Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death,

words are the labels we stick on things, not the things themselves,

death, the same death which, as we said a few pages earlier, is bound exclusively to the human race, doesn’t take her eyes off us for a minute, so much so that even those who are not yet due to die feel her gaze pursuing them constantly.

that is what art is like, things that seem impossible to the layperson turn

out not to be.