Jacob’s Reviews > Death with Interruptions > Status Update

In this story, the narrator corrects his initial view of "poor country folk". The narrator is omniscient, yet aware of his imperfections. It's a trick done in other forms of fiction, sure, but I am drawn by Saramago's use of the term.

"That's how life is, what it gives with one hand one day, it takes away with the other."

"Because philosophy needs death as much as religions do, if we philosophize it's in order to know that we will die, as monsieur montaigne said, to philosophize is to learn how to die."

"Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat."

"What are we going to do with all the old people if death is not there to cut short any ambitions they may have to live an excessively long life."

"Nothing is ever perfect, however, for alongside those who laugh, there will always be others who weep"

"perhaps they're viewing us as a kind of oasis, a garden, a new paradise"

"Or a new hell, if they've got any sense"

"Without death there is no resurrection, and without resurrection there is no church."

"more than that, how could it even occur to you that God would ever will His own demise, such an idea is pure sacrilege, possibly the very worst of blasphemies."