“There are people who have the capacity to imagine themselves as someone else, there are people who have no such capacity (when the lack is extreme, we call them psychopaths), and there are people who have the capacity but choose… — 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
“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
“Technically he is old enough to be her father; but then, technically one can be a father at twelve.” — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share
“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
“The truth is, he tired of criticism, tired of prose measured by the yard." --Disgrace” — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“...from the oppression of such freedom who would not welcome the liberation of confinement?” — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share
“If he has a last thought, if there is time for a last thought, it will simply be, So this is what a last… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share
“At what age , he wonders, did Origen castrate himself? Not the most graceful solution, but then ageing is not a graceful bussines.” — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share
“...he seems to be on the brink of one of his bad spells again, one of the fits of lugubrious self-pity that turn into… — J.M. Coetzee Copy Share
