Quotes from J. M. Coetzee

Vielleicht ist es so, dass nur das, was nicht ausgesprochen worden ist, durchlebt werden muss.

Those into whose lives you are born do not pass away. Slow Man

For I am no orator. What would I have said if they had let me go on? That it is worse to beat a man's feet to pulp than to kill him in combat? That it brings shame on everyone when a girl is permitted to flog a man? That spectacles of cruelty corrupt the hearts of the innocent?

In Coetzee's eyes, we human beings will never abandon politics because politics is too convenient and too attractive as a theatre in which to give play to our baser emotions.

Jag förbannar mig själv, och inte för första gången, för att jag har begett mig ut på en svår färd med en osäker vägvisare vid en opålitlig årstid.

I should never have allowed the gates of the town to be opened to people who assert that there are higher considerations than those of decency.

Ama aptall?k ettim, iyi vakit geçirtmek yerine onu kasvete boÄŸdum. Gerçekten de dünyan?n ÅŸark?c?lara ve dansç?lara kalmas? gerek! Gereksiz ac?lar, aylakça melankoli, boÅŸ piÅŸmanl?klar! -Barbarlar? Beklerken

TelaÅŸla uykunun inine geri dönsem de rüyaya tekrar giremiyor, aÄŸz?m? suland?ran ekmeÄŸin tad?na bakam?yorum. -Barbarlar? Beklerken

Baz? insanlar haks?z yere ac? çektiÄŸinde,' derdim kendi kendime, 'ac?lar?na tan?k olanlar?n kaderi bunun utanc?n? hissetmektir.' Ama bu düÅŸüncenin verdiÄŸi sahte avuntu beni rahatlatam?yordu. -Barbarlar? Beklerken

The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness.

The idea of writer as sage is pretty much dead today. I would certainly feel very uncomfortable in the role.

Because a women's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is a part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.

There is nothing more inimical to writing than the spirit of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism abhors the play of signs, the endlessness of writing. Fundamentalism means nothing more or less than going back to an origin and staying there. It stands for one founding book and, thereafter, no more books.

The end of confession is to tell the truth to and for oneself.

As you see, I do not treat the creation of fiction, that to say the invention and development of fantasies, as a form of abstract thought. I don't wish to deny the uses of the intellect, but sometimes one has the intuition that the intellect by itself will lead one nowhere.

I am corrupted to the bone with the beauty of this forsaken world.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

Belief may be no more, in the end, than a source of energy, like a battery which one clips into an idea to make it run. As happens when one writes: believing whatever has to be believed in order to get the job done.

Strictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals.

Sleep is no longer a healing bath, a recuperation of vital forces, but an oblivion, a nightly brush with annihilation.

In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life.