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Baltasar and Blimunda

José Saramago

Top 10 Best Quotes

“in order to invent heaven and hell a man would need to know nothing except the human body”

“--I don’t quite grasp your meaning. --Just as I don’t quite understand what I am saying. But back to the point….”

“BESIDES THE CONVERSATION of women, it is dreams that keep the world in orbit. But dreams also form a diadem of moons, therefore the sky is that splendour inside a man's head, if his head is not, in fact, his own unique sky.”

“The threat of rain appears to have nothing to do with Joao Elvas's desire to be alone, and one must not forget that, strange as it may seem, some men can spend their entire life alone and enjoy solitude, especially if it is raining and their crust is hard.”

“Joao Elvas wrapped his cloak tightly around him, tucked up his legs as if he were still in his mother's womb, and snoozed in the warmth of the hay, which gave off a pleasant odour generated by the heat of his body. There are refined men and women, and sometimes not all that refined, who cannot bear such odours and who take great pains to cover any traces of their natural smell, and the day will come when artificial roses will be sprayed with the artificial scent of roses, and these refined souls will exclaim, How lovely they smell.”

“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.”

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

“It is late afternoon, there is neither wind nor breeze nor whiff of air, you can feel the air on your skin as if it were another skin, there is no perceptible difference between Balthasar and the world, and between the world and Blimunda what difference could there be.”

“Whether is is a good or bad deal depends, for money does not always keep its value, unlike mankind, whose value is always the same, everything and nothing.”

“It will no longer be necessary to leave one's own home in order to find work in the surrounding districts, which means spending week after week away from home, for no matter how restless a fellow might be, his own home, if he has a wife he respects and children he loves, has the same satisfying taste as bread, a man's home is not for all hours, but he soon begins to miss it if he does not go back there every day.”

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Book Keywords:

love, practicality, money, walking, humanity, work, home, solitude, health, value, wanderlust, family, worth, satisfaction, homesickness, lonliness, healthy-living

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