242 Quotes by J. M. Coetzee

Je mehr sich die Dinge ändern, desto mehr bleibt alles beim alten.

All of which makes up a story I do not choose to tell. I choose not to tell it because to no one, not even to you, do I own proof that I am a substantial being with a substantial history in the world.

Bazı insanlar haksız yere acı çektiğinde,' derdim kendi kendime, 'acılarına tanık olanların kaderi bunun utancını hissetmektir.' Ama bu düşüncenin verdiği sahte avuntu beni rahatlatamıyordu. -Barbarları Beklerken

What I did not know was how longing could store itself away in the hollows of one's bones and then one day without warning flood out.

Schmerz ist Wahrheit; alles andere wird angezweifelt.

Die Wahrheit wird nicht im Zorn gesprochen. Die Wahrheit, wenn sie denn gesprochen wird, wird im Geist der Liebe gesprochen.

being seduced is a pleasure in itself. One yields for the sake of yielding.

In a while the organism will repair itself, and I, the ghost within it, will be my old self again. 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 toward his end.

The Empire does not require that its servants love each other, merely that they perform their duty.