J. M. Coetzee - Live Quotes

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He thought of himself as a termite boring its way through a rock. There seemed nothing to do but live.

J. M. Coetzee
Speaking the words he had been taught, directing them no longer upward but to the earth on which he knelt, he prayed: 'For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful.'... he... felt his heart suddenly flow over with thankfulness... like a gush of warm water... All that remains is to live here quietly for the rest of my life, eating food that my own labour has made the earth to yield. All that remains is to be a tender of the soil.

J. M. Coetzee
Perhaps; but I am a difficult person to live with. My difficulty consists in not wanting to live with other people.

J. M. Coetzee
Though this is a large country, so large that you would think there would be space for everyone, what I have learned from life tells me that it is hard to keep out of the camps. Yet I am convinced there are areas that lie between the camps and belong to no camp, not even to the catchment areas of the camps — certain mountaintops, for example, certain islands in the middle of swamps, certain arid strips where human beings may not find it worth their while to live. I am looking for such a place in order to settle there, perhaps only till things improve, perhaps forever. I am not so foolish, however, as to imagine that I can rely on maps and roads to guide me. Therefore I have chosen you to show me the way.

J. M. Coetzee
If I, this mortal shell, am going to die, let me at least live on through my creations.

J. M. Coetzee