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If I, this mortal shell, am going to die, let me at least live on through my creations.
J. M. Coetzee
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J. M. Coetzee
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: January 1
Author
Critic
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Novelist
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University Teacher
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Cape Town
South Africa
John Maxwell Coetzee
Creation
Least
Dies
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Creations
Going
Shell
Shells
Mortal
Mortals
More quotes by J. M. Coetzee
We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.
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.
J. M. Coetzee
Pain is truth all else is subject to doubt.
J. M. Coetzee
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.
J. M. Coetzee
The highest type of intelligence, says Aristotle, manifests itself in an ability to see connections where no one has seen them before, that is, to think analogically.
J. M. Coetzee
From one seed a whole handful: that was what it meant to say the bounty of the earth.
J. M. Coetzee
Pleasure is hard to come by, but pain is everywhere these days, I must learn to subsist on it.
J. M. Coetzee
So it has come, the day of testing. Without warning, without fanfare, it is here, and he is in the middle of it. In his chest his heart hammers so hard that it too, in its dumb way, must know. How will they stand up to the testing, he and his heart?
J. M. Coetzee
It’s admirable, what you do, what she does, but to me animal-welfare people are a bit like Christians of a certain kind. Everyone is so cheerful and well-intentioned that after a while you itch to go off and do some raping and pillaging. Or to kick a cat.
J. M. Coetzee
When all else fails, philosophize.
J. M. Coetzee
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.
J. M. Coetzee
I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.
J. M. Coetzee
Unbelief is a belief.
J. M. Coetzee
Was it serious? I don't know. It certainly had serious consequences.
J. M. Coetzee
Artists no longer starve in garrets. Some people may think this is not wholly a good thing, that being an artist has become too comfortable, at least in the West. I'm not sure I agree. It's a mark of civilization to encourage the arts and the life of the mind.
J. M. Coetzee
All over the world, as governments retreat from their traditional duty to foster the common good and reconceive of themselves as mere managers of national economies, universities have been coming under pressure to turn themselves into training schools equipping young people with the skills required by a modern economy.
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?
J. M. Coetzee
There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind.
J. M. Coetzee
And anyway, I suspect he secretly liked it when a woman was cold and distant
J. M. Coetzee
In my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love.
J. M. Coetzee
