Design Feast Series: Quotes

“What I mean is that the line by which I travel from one place to the next is always sinuous because it must accompany the development of the narrative, which might require something here or there that was not needed previously. The narrative must be attentive to the needs of a particular moment, which is to say that nothing is predetermined. If a story were predetermined—even if that were possible, down to the last detail that is to be written—then the work would be a total failure. The book would be obliged to exist before it existed. A book comes into existence. If I were to force a book to exist before it has come into being, then I would be doing something that is in opposition to the very nature of the development of the story that is being told. …

I think this way of writing has permitted me—I am not sure what others would say—to create works that have solid structures. In my books each moment that passes takes into account what already has occurred. Just as someone who builds has to balance one element against another in order to prevent the whole from collapsing, so too a book will develop—seeking out its own logic, not the structure that was predetermined for it.”

José Saramago, Author