I am not the we of anyone

- J. M. Coetzee

(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

- J. M. Coetzee

A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

- J. M. Coetzee

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 b…

- J. M. Coetzee

When all else fails, philosophize.

- J. M. Coetzee

Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths

- J. M. Coetzee

Let me say it openly: we are surrounded by an enterprise of degradation, cruelty, and killing which rivals anything the Third Reich was capable of, i…

- J. M. Coetzee

We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

- 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 th…

- J. M. Coetzee