J. M. Coetzee
J. M. Coetzee
John Maxwell "J. M." Coetzeeis a South African novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He relocated to Australia in 2002 and lives in Adelaide. He became an Australian citizen in 2006...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth9 February 1940
baby animal thumbs-down
They have no consciousness therefore. Therefore what? Therefore we are free to use them for our own ends? Therefore we are free to kill them? Why? What is so special about the form of consciousness we recognize that makes killing a bearer of it a crime while killing an animal goes unpunished?...all this discussion of consciousness and whether animals have it is just a smokescreen. At bottom we protect our own kind. Thumbs up to human babies, thumbs down to veal calves.
lying
Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths
blood leaving despair
But the truth, he knows, is otherwise. His pleasure in living has been snuffed out. Like a leaf on a stream, like a puffball on a breeze, he has begun to float towards his end. He sees it quite clearly, and it fills him with (the word will not go away) despair. The blood of life is leaving his body and despair is taking its place, despair that is like a gas, odourless, tasteless, without nourishment. You breathe it in, your limbs relax, you cease to care, even at the moment when the steel touches your throat.
people difficult difficulty
Perhaps; but I am a difficult person to live with. My difficulty consists in not wanting to live with other people.
cold suspects
And anyway, I suspect he secretly liked it when a woman was cold and distant
heart sleep night
Yet what happened in fact? In the middle of the night John woke up and saw me sleeping beside him with no doubt a look of peace on my face, even of bliss, bliss is not unattainable in this world. He saw me—saw me as I was at that moment—took fright, hurriedly strapped the armour back over his heart, this time with chains and a double padlock, and stole out into the darkness.
heart men emotional
That was our first time together. Interesting, an interesting experience, but not earth-shaking. But then, I never expected it to be earth-shaking, not with him. What I was determined to avoid was emotional entanglement. A passing fling was one thing, an affair of the heart quite another. Of myself I was fairly sure. I was not about to lose my heart to a man about whom I knew next to nothing.
europe intellectual movement
I say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African.
night cities pyramids
One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.
intuition wish fiction
As you see, I do not treat the creation of fiction, that to say the invention and development of fantasies,as a form of abstract thought. I dont wish to deny the uses of the intellect,but sometimes one has the intuition that the intellect by itself will lead one nowhere.
earth seeds bounty
From one seed a whole handful: that was what it meant to say the bounty of the earth.
art trying restoration
Restoration is a skilled profession. You might even call it an art in its own right, except that it is frowned on to be original. First rule of restoration: follow the intention of the artist. Never try to improve on him.
There seemed nothing to do but live.
pain doubt subjects
Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt.