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More Quotes by J. M. Coetzee
His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origin of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.
If we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.
Sleep is no longer a healing bath, a recuperation of vital forces, but an oblivion, a nightly brush with annihilation.
Perhaps; but I am a difficult person to live with. My difficulty consists in not wanting to live with other people.
I am not the we of anyone.
He 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: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing.
When all else fails, philosophize.
We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.
Poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response.
Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?
