Erasmus dramatizes a well-established political position: that of the fool who claims license to criticize all and sundry without reprisal, since his madness defines him as not fully a person and therefore not a political being with political desires and… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
Can desire grow out of admiration, or are the two quite distinct species? What would it be like to lie side by side, naked, breast to breast, with a woman one principally admires? — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“For I am no orator. What would I have said if they had let me go on? That it is worse to beat a… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
To me, a philosopher who says that the distinction between human and nonhuman depends on whether you have a white or a black skin,… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
The spark of true poetry flashes when ideas are juxtaposed that no one has yet thought of bringing together. — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
“But with this woman it is as if there is no interior, only a surface across which I hunt back and forth seeking entry.… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
You think you know what is just and what is not. I understand. We all think we know." I had no doubt, myself, then,… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
The highest type of intelligence, says Aristotle, manifests itself in an ability to see connections where no one has seen them before, that is,… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
Elizabeth, Lady C, claims to be writing at the limits of language. Would it not be insulting to her if I were diligently to… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
Denunciations of the manipulativeness of advertisers can unfortunately all too easily be turned on their heads into denunciations of the gullibility of consumers. Both… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
Deprived of human intercourse, I inevitably overvalue the imagination and expect it to make the mundane glow with an aura of self-transcendence. Yet why… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
What is miraculous about the past is that we have succeeded--God knows how--in making thousands and millions of individual human beings, lock well enought… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
...the program of scientific experimentation that leads you to conclude that animals are imbeciles is profoundly anthropocentric. It values being able to find your… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
