Belief may be no more, in the end, than a source of energy, like a battery which one clips into an idea… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
Artists no longer starve in garrets. Some people may think this is not wholly a good thing, that being an artist has… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
My response, a dubious and hesitant one, is that it has been and may continue to be, in the time that is… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
If it is indeed impossible - or at least very difficult - to inhabit the consciousness of an animal, then in writing… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
As for September 11, let us not too easily grant the Americans possession of that date on the calendar. Like May 1… — J. M. Coetzee Copy Share Image
If you were blind you would hardly have fallen in love in the first place. But now, do you truly wish to… — 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
