We have an odd relationship with words. We learn a few when we are small, throughout our lives we collect others through education, conversation, our contact with books, and yet, in comparison, there are only a tiny number about whose meaning, sense, and denotation we would have absolutely no doubts, if one day, we were...

Words have their own hierarchy, their own protocol, their own artistic titles, their own plebeian stigmas.

These earthenware bowls are fragile and easily broken, they are only made of a little clay on which fortune has precariously bestowed a shape, and the same could be said of mankind.

la culpa era de su ceguera de progenitor, la misma, (…) que nos impide ver que nuestros hijos, al fin y al cabo, son tan buenos o tan malos como los demás

If, before every action, we were to begin by weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probable, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt. The good and evil resulting from our...

In a matter of a moment the amount of sand in the upper part of the hour-glass had dwindled dramatically, the tiny grains were rushing through the opening, each grain more eager to leave then the last, time is just like people, sometimes it’s all it can do to drag itself along, but at others,...

You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it’s time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives.

… la muerte, por sí misma, sola, sin ninguna ayuda exterior, siempre ha matado mucho menos que el hombre.

Reading is probably another way of being in a place.

Yes, My Son, man is a piece of wood, that can be used for everything, from the moment he’s born until the moment he dies, he’s always ready to obey, send him there and he goes, tell him to halt and he stops, tell him to turn back and he retreats, whether in peace or...

God will save you.Surely you’re forgetting that God saves souls rather than bodies.

Estoy de paso, había dicho el escritor, y estas son las señales que iba dejando al pasar.

…queira Deus que nunca se extinga a caridade para que não venha a acabar-se a pobreza…

Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered

Tens de aprender a viver com a escuridão de fora como aprendeste a viver com a escuridão de dentro.

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

Al contrario de lo que piensa el sentido común, las cosas de la voluntad nunca son simples, lo que es simple es la indecisión, la incertidumbre, la irresolución…

…sleep is a skilled magician, it changes the proportions of things, the distances between them, it separates people and they’re lying next to each other, brings them together and they can barely see one another…

Cennet, cehennem ya da benzer kavramlara gelince, doğrusu ölümünden sonra ne olduğu konusuyla sanıldığı kadar ilgili değilizdir,din sayın düşünür,dünyevi bir konudur aslında,öbür tarafla ya da göğün yedi katıyla hiçbir ilgisi yoktur. Duymayı alışık olduğunuz sözler bunlar değil tabii ama biz de sattığımız malın daha çekici olması için bir şeyler yapmak zorundayız. O halde bu söylediklerinizden...

Se tens um coração de ferro, bom proveito. O meu, fizeram-no de carne, e sangra todo o dia.

Such is our need to shower blame on some distant entity when it is we who lack the courage to face up to what is there before us.

a man was on his way to the gallows when he met another, who asked him: where are you going, my friend? and the condemned man replied: i’m not going anywhere. they’re taking me by force.

There is nothing healthier for a man than to walk on his own two legs

Tentei não fazer nada na minha vida que envergonhasse a criança que fui.Quando me for deste mundo, partirão duas pessoas. Sairei de mão dada, com essa criança que fui.

…as cartas de amor são rídiculas, isto é o que escreve quando já a morte vem subindo a escada, quando se torna de súbito claro que verdadeiramente ridículo é não ter recebido nunca uma carta de amor.

Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt. Some say that the main cause of this very serious difficulty lies in the fact that human beings are basically made of clay, which, as the encyclopedias helpfully explain, is a...

Certaines relations harmonieuses se créent et durent gr ce à un système complexe de menues contre-vérités, de renoncements, une espèce de ballet complice d’attitudes et de postures qui peut se résumer dans un proverbe jamais assez cité, ou plutôt une sentence, cette désignation lui convenant beaucoup mieux, Toi et moi nous savons, mais tais-toi et...

A man must earn his daily bread by some means some-where, and if his bread fails to nourish his soul, at least his body will be nourished while his soul suffers.

[…] with the protecting sky in all its splendour and the golden sun blazing forth against a backdrop of crystalline blue, to use the inspired words of a television reporter[…].

Proclamava-se ali o fim do mundo, a salvação penitencial, a visão do sétimo dia, o advento do anjo, a colisão cósmica, a extinção do sol, o espírito da tribo, a seiva da mandrágora, o unguento do tigre, a virtude do signo, a disciplina do vento, o perfume da lua, a reivindicação da treva, o poder...

…the human being to lack that second skin we call egoism has not yet been born, it lasts much longer than the other one, that bleeds so readily.

..then he added, as if requiring a response to his own remark,’Probably the greater the difference, the greater the similarity, and the greater the similarity, the greater the difference,’ at that moment he did not yet know how right he was.

O pão de agora não mata a fome de ontem, muito menos a de amanhã.

Even death, faced with the option of death or life, she would choose life.

The church has never been asked to explain anything, our speciality, along with ballistics, has always been the neutralisation of the overly curious mind through faith.

Men are all the same, they think that because they came out of the belly of a woman they know all there is to know about women.

… time is a master of ceremonies who always ends up putting us in our rightful place, we advance, stop, and retreat according to his orders, our mistake lies in imagining that we can catch him out.

…we confidently say that it’s not worth trying to reach any conclusions merely because we decide to stop halfway along the path that would lead us straight to them.

Assim é, mas a vantagem da igreja é que, embora às vezes o não pareça, ao gerir o que está no alto, governa o que está em baixo.

Contrary to what is generally believed, meaning and sense were never the same thing, meaning shows itself at once, direct, literal, explicit, enclosed in itself, univocal, if you like, while sense cannot stay still, it seethes with second, third and fourth senses, radiating out in different directions that divide and subdivide into branches and branchlets,...

Somos o que pensamos, e dizemos aquilo que pensamos com palavras. Se as palavras são tão mal usadas, deturpadas, mal pronunciadas muitas vezes, que pensamento podem expressar? Isso é frustrante.

The trouble with this dog is that it has grown too close to human beings, it will suffer as they do.

Não tenhamos pressa, mas não percamos tempo.

A viagem não acaba nunca. Só os viajantes acabam

Tudo no mundo está dando respostas, o que demora é o tempo das perguntas.

O mundo é tão bonito e eu tenho tanta pena de morrer.

Não aprendeste nada, vai-te, dissera o Pastor, e quiçá quisesse dizer que ele não aprendera a defender a vida.

There are people like Senhor José everywhere, who fill their time, or what they believe to be their spare time, by collecting stamps, coins, medals, vases, postcards, matchboxes, books, clocks, sport shirts, autographs, stones, clay figurines, empty beverage cans, little angels, cacti, opera programmes, lighters, pens, owls, music boxes, bottles, bonsai trees, paintings, mugs, pipes,...

Intotdeauna ajungem acolo unde suntem asteptati.

Falar do passado é o mais fácil que há, está tudo escrito, é só repetir, papaguear, conferir pelos livros o que os alunos [escrevem] nos livros ou nas chamadas orais, ao passo que falar de um presente que a cada minuto nos rebenta na cara, falar dele todos os dias do ano ao mesmo tempo...