J. M. Coetzee Quotes

Quotes about:

• (I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Simple, Generosity, Guilt

  "Disgrace". Book by J. M. Coetzee, 2000.

  60 Copy quote

• A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Book, Sea, Frozen

  J.M. Coetzee (2009). “Summertime”, p.61, Random House

  20 Copy quote

• Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths

  J. M. Coetzee

  Lying

  J. M. Coetzee (2005). “Slow Man”, Viking Press

  4 Copy quote

• When all else fails, philosophize.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Failing, When All Else Fails

  J. M. Coetzee (1999). “Disgrâce”, Random House (UK)

  29 Copy quote

• The highest type of intelligence, says Aristotle, manifests itself in an ability to see connections where no one has seen them before, that is, to think analogically.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Thinking, Connections, Type

  13 Copy quote

• We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Ignorance, Certain, Blindness

  J. M. Coetzee (2017). “Foe: A Novel”, p.98, Penguin

  26 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Love Is, Light, Beloved

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  27 Copy quote

• Let me say it openly: we are surrounded by an enterprise of degradation, cruelty, and killing which rivals anything the Third Reich was capable of, indeed dwarfs it, in that ours is an enterprise without end, self-regenerating, bringing rabbits, rats, poultry, livestock ceaselessly into the world for the purpose of killing them.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Self, Holocaust, Rabbits

  J. M. Coetzee (2016). “The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]”, p.21, Princeton University Press

  44 Copy quote

• Perhaps we invented the gods so that we could put the blame on them. They gave us permission to eat flesh. They gave us permission to play with unclean things. It's not our fault, it's theirs. We're just their children.

  J. M. Coetzee

  God, Children, Play

  J. M. Coetzee (2016). “The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]”, p.41, Princeton University Press

  6 Copy quote

• It is a world of words that creates a world of things.

  J. M. Coetzee

  World

  J M Coetzee (2015). “In The Heart Of The Country”, p.146, Random House

  5 Copy quote

• I speak to the broken halves of all our selves and tell them to embrace, loving the worst in us equally with the best.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Self, Broken, Half

  J. M. Coetzee (2017). “Dusklands”, p.38, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• Anyone who says that life matters less to an animal than it does to us has not held in his hands an animal fighting for its life. The whole of the being of the animal is thrown into that fight, without reserve. When you say that the fight lacks a dimension of intellectual or imaginative horror, I agree. It is not the mode of being animals to have an intellectual horror: their whole being is in the living flesh...I urge you to walk, flank to flank, beside the beast that is prodded down the chute to his executioner.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Fighting, Animal, Hands

  J. M. Coetzee (2016). “The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]”, p.65, Princeton University Press

  28 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Running, Ideas, Energy

  "Elizabeth Costello". Book by J. M. Coetzee, 2003.

  15 Copy quote

• I 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 seeking to divide us into the righteous and the sinners, the saved and the damned, the sheep and the goats.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Philosophical, Sheep, Enlightenment

  J. M. Coetzee (2016). “The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]”, p.22, Princeton University Press

  4 Copy quote

• Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Pain, Doubt, Subjects

  J. M. Coetzee (1980). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Penguin Group USA

  7 Copy quote

• Machiavelli says that if as a ruler you accept that your every action must pass moral scrutiny, you will without fail be defeated by an opponent who submits to no such moral test. To hold on to power, you have not only to master the crafts of deception and treachery but to be prepared to use them where necessary.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Deception, Use, Crafts

  "Diary of a Bad Year". Book by J. M. Coetzee, 2007.

  6 Copy quote

• Reason is simply a vast tautology.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Reason, Tautology

  J. M. Coetzee (2016). “The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]”, p.25, Princeton University Press

  11 Copy quote

• Nothing is worse than what we can imagine.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Imagination, Imagine

  J. M. Coetzee (1980). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Penguin Group USA

  5 Copy quote

• Children all over the world consort quite naturally with animals. They don't see any dividing line. That is something they have to be taught, just as they have to be taught it is all right to kill and eat them.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Children, Animal, Pet

  J. M. Coetzee (2016). “The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]”, p.61, Princeton University Press

  28 Copy quote

• The devil is everywhere under the skin of things, searching for a way into the light.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Light, Skins, Devil

  "Elizabeth Costello". Book by J. M. Coetzee, 2003.

  5 Copy quote

• All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Memories, Justice, World

  J. M. Coetzee (1980). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Penguin Group USA

  21 Copy quote

• Long visits don't make for good friends.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Good Friend, Long

  J. M. Coetzee (1999). “Disgrâce”, Random House (UK)

  8 Copy quote

• I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Knowledge, Barbarians, Too Much

  J. M. Coetzee (1980). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, Penguin Group USA

  22 Copy quote

• 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.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Doe, Women's Beauty, World

  J. M. Coetzee (1999). “Disgrâce”, Random House (UK)

  17 Copy quote

• I am not the we of anyone

  J. M. Coetzee

  14 Copy quote

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