242 Quotes by J. M. Coetzee

As for September 11, let us not too easily grant the Americans possession of that date on the calendar. Like May 1 or July 14 or December 25, September 11 may seem full of significance to some people, while to other people it is just another day.

The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness.

Strictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals.

Unbelief is a belief.

I am corrupted to the bone with the beauty of this forsaken world.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

There is first of all the problem of the opening, namely, how to get us from where we are, which is, as yet, nowhere, to the far bank. It is a simple bridging problem, a problem of knocking together a bridge. People solve such problems every day. They solve them, and having solved them push on.

Belief may be no more, in the end, than a source of energy, like a battery which one clips into an idea to make it run.

Truth is not spoken in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love. The gaze of love is not deluded. It sees what is best in the beloved even when what is best in the beloved finds it hard to emerge into the light.