The Collected Novels of José Saramago

by José Saramago

There should be some means of discovering who is arriving and what brings them here, the seagulls know these things when they perch on the ship’s mast, while we, for whom it is much more important, know nothing, and the old soldier rejoined, The seagulls have wings, the angels, too, but the seagulls do not speak, and angels I have never seen.

news of one’s destiny is never the whole truth, what happens tomorrow is what really counts, today means little or nothing,

Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are,

Today is today, tomorrow will bring what tomorrow brings, today is my responsibility, not tomorrow if I should turn blind,