“She shakes him; that is what she presumable does to other readers too. That is, presumably why, in the larger picture, she… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“...So that someone might want to put you in a book...So that you may be worth putting in a book...Live like a… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“Well, cast your mind back to the books he wrote. What is the one theme that keeps recurring from book to book?… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“...we can pretend that the book in question is not Mr. West’s but mine, made mine by the madness of my reading.” — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“How many of the ragged workingmen who pass him in the street are secret authors of works that will outlast them: roads,… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“It always puzzled him, when he was a child, that a woman who wrote books for a living should be so bad… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“I urge you: don't cut short these thought-trains of yours. Follow them through to their end. Your thoughts and your feelings. Follow them through… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“I truly believe I am not afraid of death. What I shrink from, I believe, is the shame of dying as stupid and befuddled… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“Technically he is old enough to be her father; but then, technically one can be a father at twelve.” — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“I remember asking John, after Dusklands, what new project he had on the go. His answer was vague. 'There is always something or the… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“The truth is, he tired of criticism, tired of prose measured by the yard." --Disgrace” — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“Since I was in flight from religion, I assumed that my classmates had to be in flight from religion too, albeit in a quieter,… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“Lucy was frightened, frightened near to death. Her voice choked, she could not breath, her limbs went numb. "This is not happening", she said… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“It occurs to me that we crush insects beneath our feet, miracles of creation too, beetles, worms, cockroaches, ants, in their various ways.” — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“He sits with the pen in his hand, holding himself back from a descent into representations that have no place in the world, on… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“Do you remember Vlek, who was such a good sheepdog that she and Jakob alone could drive a whole flock past you at the… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“We are accustomed to believe that our world was created by God speaking the Word; but I ask, may it not rather be that… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“...from the oppression of such freedom who would not welcome the liberation of confinement?” — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
