More Quotes by J. M. Coetzee
Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?
Sleep is no longer a healing bath, a recuperation of vital forces, but an oblivion, a nightly brush with annihilation.
Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt.
If we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.
When all else fails, philosophize.
Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization.
He continues to teach because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him humility, brings it home to him who he is in the world. The irony does not escape him: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing.
Poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response.
I’m going to end up in a hole in the ground... And so are you. So are we all.
A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.
