The Year Of The Death Of Ricardo Reis Quotes
"Pessoa argued that his three main pseudonyms (Alvaro de Campos, Alberto Caeiro and Ricardo Reis) were not mere aliases, but evidence of the multiple personalities we all possess, contrasting facets of our innumerable selves."
"He clearly found companionship preferable to love because it was ultimately less demanding and painful."
"Freedom he defines as the illusion of being free, happiness as the illusion of being happy."
"The wise man enjoys each moment as if it were his last, advocating a state of calm acceptance rather than one of active enjoyment."
"As Saramago puts it: ‘We all suffer from some malaise, from some essential malaise, inseparable from what we are, a malaise, which makes us what we are: it might even be more accurate to say that each of us is our own malaise, because of that malaise we are so little, because of it we succeed in being so much.’"
"‘The wall that separates the living, each one from the other, is no less opaque than the wall that separates the living from the dead.’"
"‘The history of Portugal is not that of Europe, but the history of Europe would be unimaginable without that of Portugal.’"
"Saramago, like Borges, is out to persuade us that: ‘There is no more elaborate pleasure than that of thought.’"
"‘Man has been endowed with words to disguise his thoughts.’"
"‘We are not what we say, we are the credence others give us.’"
"Heard steps in the corridor, knuckles tapped discreetly on the door. Come in, words of entreaty rather than command."
"All I ask of the gods is that I should ask nothing of them."
"The fascination of silence, to be silent and immobile like the gods, watching and nothing more."
"Tomorrow I shall not enter the dining room before half past eight. Here I am as ridiculous as any bumpkin newly arrived in the city."
"We believe in the importance of what we have just said or written, if for no other reason than that it is impossible to take back the sounds or erase the marks."
"Let us not say, 'Tomorrow I shall do it,' for it is almost certain that tomorrow we will feel tired."
"The moment has already passed, Ricardo Reis has closed the window, Lydia, once more simply a maid, backs toward the door."
"We are vanity and cannot endure, but the mirror endures, the same, because it rejects us."
"Nor did he think it strange that Fernando Pessoa should be sitting there waiting for him."
"True, every age sweeps away what it can, sometimes with greater ease, when there are wars and epidemics, sometimes at a steady pace, one death after another."
"But we can always console ourselves with the thought that the majority of the little angels in heaven are Portuguese."
"Inside the body, too, there is profound darkness, yet the blood reaches the heart, the brain is sightless yet can see, it is deaf yet hears, it has no hands yet reaches out."
"Clearly man is trapped in his own labyrinth."
"Ridicule is like heartburn, an acidity continuously revived by memory, an incurable wound."
"There are moments when it would be preferable to die."
"He decided that the following day he would change his hotel or rent part of a house, or return to Brazil on the first available ship."
"It is not certain, however, that upon returning to his room to collect the tray, Lydia is still part of this world moved on, she seems to be waiting behind with an air of uncertainty."
"This is childish, if a man wants something, he does not leave it to chance but sets out to achieve it."
"The orchestra and red carpet are flights of fancy, and now, so that this poet’s tale may have a happy ending, he accomplishes the clinical miracle of placing a bouquet of flowers in Marcenda’s left arm and having it remain there without any assistance."
"As you well know, I have no strong principles, today I argue for one thing, tomorrow for another, I may not believe in what I defend today or have any real faith in what I defend tomorrow."
"For me there is no longer any today or tomorrow, how can I be expected to go on believing or expect it of others, and even if they believe, do they really know what they believe in."
"Only when we are dead do we become spectators, nor can we even be sure of that."
"What we cannot accept is that Lloyd George should assert that Portugal has far too many colonies in comparison with Germany and Italy."
"The life of nations, after all, consists of much barking and little biting."
"Let the world know that Germany will pursue and cherish peace as no other nation has ever cherished it before."
"If a dead man can get so upset, death clearly does not bring peace."
"The rule is that some eat figs while others watch."
"People struggle for what they believe to be their values but what may be merely emotions momentarily aroused."
"The only difference between life and death is that the living still have time."
"What gesture, what word, I don’t know, a man dies from not having said it, from not having made it, that is what he dies of, not from sickness."
"I cannot explain or sum up myself in a single action or word."
"Nations struggle against each other on behalf of interests that are not those of Jack or Pierre or Hans or Manolo or Giuseppe."
"Let us accomplish what we are, we possess nothing more than that."
"My vision of a Fifth Empire was vague and fanciful, why should it become a reality for you."
"He who has never had any brothers or sisters and finds himself with no friends is assailed by such longings, especially when he is feeling weak."
"Many thanks, I’m beginning to realize that the dead are worse than the elderly, once they start talking they don’t know when to stop."
"However much one speaks, however much we all speak, there’s no advantage in being warned, there will always be some little word we leave out."
"By refraining from questions we can go on deluding ourselves that one day we may know the answers."
"To think that they set sail from this river, what ship, what armada, what fleet can find the route, which route and leading where, I ask myself."
"Between what I live and life, between what I appear to be and am, I slumber on a slope, a slope I will not leave."
"ANYONE WHO SAYS that nature is indifferent to the cares and sufferings of mankind knows little about mankind or nature."
"The best remedy for a toothache is to walk through the door when the dentist calls."
"It is certainly true that one can achieve a great deal simply by being polite."
"Every item of furniture was bare, empty, not a single utensil, dish, or ornament, no sheets or towels, The last tenant was an old woman, a widow, who has gone to live with her children and taken all her belongings, the place is to be let with only the furniture you see here."
"Who were they, what kind of existence did they lead, what brought them to this place, chewing cod, baked hake, steak and potatoes, nearly everyone drinking red wine."
"What we would like to have been is as valuable as what we have been."
"It is raining out there with such a deafening noise that it seems that the rain is falling throughout the world, that as the globe turns, its waters hum in space as if on a spinning top."
"Such weather. He went to the window. The old men, like somber insects attracted by the light, were standing on the sidewalk opposite, one tall, the other short, each armed with an umbrella, their heads upturned like praying mantises."
"From his windows bare of drapes Ricardo Reis watched the river’s expanse. To get a better view he switched off the light. Gray light fell like pollen from the skies, becoming darker as it settled."
"The evening is so sad that a desire to weep surges from the depths of the soul."
"You might well ask how these good women know the apartment is large. Who can tell, perhaps in the time of Dona Luísa they did some charring there. Women of that class will turn their hand to anything that comes their way if their husbands earn low wages or pocket some of it to spend on booze and whores."
"A man, if he has studied, learns to be skeptical, especially since the gods are so inconstant. The only certainty, theirs from knowledge, ours from experience, is that everything comes to an end, and always soonest."
"Search your house, look for the most worthless thing therein, and you will find that it is your own soul."
"Loneliness is not living alone, loneliness is the inability to keep someone or something within us company."
"It is even worse to be alone where we ourselves are not."
"Life is full of half-brothers and half-sisters."
"Death too is repetitive, it is in fact the most repetitive thing of all."
"I don’t recall ever having felt myself to be truly useful."
"The easiest and most immediate solution would be to knock on a neighbor’s door."
"Man, in the final analysis, is an irrational creature."
"As that other poet said, 'To walk alone among men.'"
"Sometimes that presence and that voice only serve to render it intolerable."
"No creature escapes its destiny, no creature endures to give seed, this is the solemn truth."
"Life is too short to indulge in such thoughts."
"The weather is getting worse, and so is the world."
"No one can resist them when they place a hand upon a shoulder or cast a chaste glance beneath a suspended tear."
"The important thing is to find a place where we can eat and save a little money."
"No mother who has ever begotten a son could guide him to a loftier and nobler destiny than that of giving his life in defense of the fatherland."
"A man eats as he’s been taught, but the impression made by the doctor was that of someone refined."
"There is that inevitable moment when he is assailed by memories."
"Language owes its fascination to contradictions such as these, no one can rise and fall at the same time, yet we have seen it happen often or possibly even experienced it ourselves."
"That one must die. Those of us who are alive know that we will die. You don’t know it, no one knows it, just as I didn’t when I was alive."
"The dead man has the advantage of having been alive, he is familiar with the things of this world and of the other world, too, whereas the living are incapable of learning the one fundamental truth and profiting from it."
"Of course it’s trivial, you have no idea just how trivial everything becomes when seen from this side of death."
"The love of symmetry, my dear Fernando, comes from a vital need for balance, it keeps us from falling."
"We live so far apart, there is such a difference in our ages, in our destinies."
"There is nothing more pointless in this world than regret, people who express it merely want to be forgiven."
"I thought you were a law-abiding man, incapable of upsetting the authorities."
"If we jeered at the Negus like good Italians in the League of Nations, let us now croon like good Portuguese to the gentle breeze as we leave our homes."
"There’s a coincidence for you, that after writing poems for so many years to an anonymous, ethereal Lydia I should come across a chambermaid with this name."
"There is no doubt that Marcenda exists, this letter was clearly written by her, but Marcenda, who is she, what is there in common between the girl seen for the first time in the dining room of the Hotel Bragança, when she was a stranger to him, and this Marcenda whose name and person now fill the thoughts and feelings and words of Ricardo Reis."
"And now that the Left has won the elections in France and the Socialist leader Blum has declared himself ready to form a Popular Front government, we can expect another horde of refugees."
"Have I ever really experienced life, Ricardo Reis murmured to himself."
"It is as if the gates of hell have been opened, for only from hell could such horrors have come."
"Alms for the sake of the souls of your dear departed, God will reward you."
"The precious gem of Catholicism sparkles with many facets."
"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord Thy God or His Holy Mother."
"The statue was brought out, carried around in procession, then it disappeared."
"The blind still could not see, the dumb still could not speak, the paralyzed still were paralyzed."
"My faith was lacking, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."