J. M. CoetzeeTo the last we have learned nothing. In all of us, deep down, there seems to be something granite and unteachable. No one truly believes, despite the hysteria in the streets that … ▶361Reading
J. M. CoetzeeHe continues to teach because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him humility, brings it home to him who he is in the world. The irony does not escape him:… ▶373Time
J. M. CoetzeeWhere civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization. ✨ J. M. Coetzee (1980). Waiti… ▶375Humanity
J. M. CoetzeeI want to find a way of speaking to fellow human beings that will be cool rather than heated, philosophical rather than polemical, that will bring enlightenment rather than seekin… ▶375Humanity
J. M. CoetzeeThat has always seemed to me one of the stranger aspects of literary fame: you prove your competence as a writer and an inventor of stories, and then people clamour for you to mak… ▶354HumanityThought
J. M. CoetzeeTemperament is fixed, set. The skull, followed by the temperament: the two hardest parts of the body. Follow your temperament. It is not a philosophy, It is a rule, like the Rule … ▶321Philosophy
J. M. CoetzeeHis mouth opens. From inside him comes a slow stream, without breath, without interruption. It flows up through his body and out upon me; it passes through the cabin, through the … ▶332Reading
J. M. CoetzeeA book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us. ✨ J.M. Coetzee (2009). Summertime, p.61, Random House354ReadingTime
J. M. CoetzeeOne thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it s… ▶366DeathThought
J. M. CoetzeeBecome major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?301Life
J. M. CoetzeeI say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African. ✨ An exclusive interview with J M Coetzee. Interview with David A… ▶312Time
J. M. CoetzeeIt gets harder all the time, Bev Shaw once said. Harder, yet easier. One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be hard as hard can be gr… ▶356Time
J. M. CoetzeeThe most important of all rights is the right to life, and I cannot foresee a day when domesticated animals will be granted that right in law.324LifePolitics
J. M. CoetzeeOur lies reveal as much about us as our truths ✨ J. M. Coetzee (2005). Slow Man, Viking Press302Truth
J. M. CoetzeeMusic expresses feeling, that is to say, gives shape and habitation to feeling, not in space but in time. To the extent that music has a history that is more than a history of its… ▶335PhilosophyTime
J. M. CoetzeeBecause 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. ✨ J. M. Coetzee (1999). Disgrâce, Ra… ▶292Humor
J. M. CoetzeeWe are not by nature cruel.281Humor
J. M. CoetzeeMy existence from day to day has become a matter of averting my eyes, of cringing. Death is the only truth left. Death is what I cannot bear to think. At every moment when I am th… ▶304DeathLifeThought
J. M. CoetzeeBut it is the knowledge of how contingent my unease is, how dependent on a baby that wails beneath my window one day and does not wail the next, that brings the worst shame to me,… ▶326Reading
J. M. CoetzeeNo, Paul, I couldn't care less if you tell me made-up stories. Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths.' (Said to Paul by Elizabeth Costello, the interloping novelist-angel… ▶282ReadingTruth
J. M. CoetzeeShe gives him what he can only call a sweet smile. 'So you are determined to go on being bad. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I promise, no one will ask you to change. ✨ J.… ▶304Reflection
J. M. CoetzeeThere seemed nothing to do but live. ✨ J. M. Coetzee (1984). Life & times of Michael K, Viking Adult315LifeTime
J. M. Coetzee...the program of scientific experimentation that leads you to conclude that animals are imbeciles is profoundly anthropocentric. It values being able to find your way out of a st… ▶339DeathHumanityTruth
J. M. CoetzeeIn a world of chance is there a better and a worse? We yield to a stranger's embrace or give ourselves to the waves; for the blink of an eyelid our vigilance relaxes; we are aslee… ▶262HumanityReading
J. M. CoetzeeOne day some as yet unborn scholar will recognize in the clock the machine that has tamed the wilds. ✨ J. M. Coetzee (2017). In the Heart of the Country: A Novel, p.7, Pengu… ▶328LoveReading
J. M. CoetzeeHe even knew the reason why: because enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind and keep gard… ▶285LifeReadingThought
J. M. CoetzeeI am not the we of anyone307Thought
J. M. CoetzeeI don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted. ✨ J. M. Coetzee (1999). Disgrâce, Random House (UK)274DeathReadingThought
J. M. CoetzeeSo it has come, the day of testing. Without warning, without fanfare, it is here, and he is in the middle of it. In his chest his heart hammers so hard that it too, in its dumb wa… ▶241Love
J. M. CoetzeeFrom one seed a whole handful: that was what it meant to say the bounty of the earth. ✨ J. M. Coetzee (1984). Life & times of Michael K, Viking Adult275LifeTime
