127 Quotes by J.M. Coetzee

if Jesus had stooped to play politics he might have become a key man in Roman Judea, a big operator. It was because he was indifferent to politics, and made his indifference clear, that he was liquidated. How to live one's life outside politics, and one's death too: that was the example he set for his followers.

Obwohl diese afrikanischen Militärbanden oft nicht größer oder mächtiger sind als die organisierten kriminellen Banden in Asien oder Osteuropa, wird über ihre Aktivitäten in den Medien - sogar in den westlichen Medien - unter der Rubrik Politik (Geschehen aus aller Welt) respektvoll berichtet, statt unter der Rubrik Verbrechen.

Demokratie gestattet keine Politik außerhalb des demokratischen Systems. In diesem Sinne ist Demokratie totalitär.

Vergnügen ist Mangelware, aber an Schmerz ist heute überall ranzukommen.

Because a woman's beauty does not belong to her alone. It is a part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.

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

Like much else nowadays I leave it feeling stupid, like a man who lost his way long ago but presses on along a road that may lead nowhere.

It always puzzled him, when he was a child, that a woman who wrote books for a living should be so bad at telling bedtime stories.

I do believe that people can only be in love with one landscape in their lifetime. One can appreciate and enjoy many geographies, but there is only one that one feels in one’s bones.