More Quotes by J. M. Coetzee
Sleep is no longer a healing bath, a recuperation of vital forces, but an oblivion, a nightly brush with annihilation.
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.
Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?
Truth is not spoken in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love. The gaze of love is not deluded. It sees what is best in the beloved even when what is best in the beloved finds it hard to emerge into the light.
Perhaps; but I am a difficult person to live with. My difficulty consists in not wanting to live with other people.
You are going to end up as one of those sad old men who poke around in rubbish bins.
Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt.
I’m going to end up in a hole in the ground... And so are you. So are we all.
Was it serious? I don't know. It certainly had serious consequences.
Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization.
