J. M. Coetzee - Disgrace (1999)

20 Sourced Quotes

View all J. M. Coetzee Quotes
Temperament is fixed, set. The skull, followed by the temperament: the two hardest parts of the body. Follow your temperament. It is not a philosophy, It is a rule, like the Rule of St Benedict.

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
If you were blind you would hardly have fallen in love in the first place. But now, do you truly wish to see the beloved in the cold clarity of the visual apparatus? It may be in your better interest to throw a veil over the gaze, so as to keep her alive in her archetypal, goddesslike form.

J. M. Coetzee
Being a father... I can't help feeling that, by comparison with being a mother, being a father is a rather abstract business.

J. M. Coetzee
The truth is, he tired of criticism, tired of prose measured by the yard.

J. M. Coetzee
If we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

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
He knows too much about himself to subject her to a morning after, when he will be cold, surly, impatient to be alone.

J. M. Coetzee
I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.

J. M. Coetzee
His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origin of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.

J. M. Coetzee
His mind has become a refuge for old thoughts, idle, indigent, with nowhere else to go. He ought to chase them out, sweep the premises clean. But he does not care to do so, or does not care enough"(72).

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
Although he devoted hours of each day to his new discipline, he finds its first premise, as enunciated in the Communications 101 handbook, preposterous: 'Human society has created language in order that we may communicate our thoughts, feelings, and intentions to each other.' His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origins of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.

J. M. Coetzee
It gets harder all the time, Bev Shaw once said. Harder, yet easier. One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be hard as hard can be grows harder yet.

J. M. Coetzee
Isaacs has a cheap Bic pen in his hand. He runs his fingers down the shaft, inverts it, runs his fingers down the shaft, over and over, in a motion that is mechanical rather than impatient.

J. M. Coetzee
She gives him what he can only call a sweet smile. 'So you are determined to go on being bad. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I promise, no one will ask you to change.

J. M. Coetzee
Talking to Petrus is like punching a bag of sand.
'Are you giving him up?'
'Yes, I am giving him up.'

J. M. Coetzee
You are going to end up as one of those sad old men who poke around in rubbish bins. I'm going to end up in a hole in the ground... And so are you. So are we all.

J. M. Coetzee
Was it serious? I don't know. It certainly had serious consequences.

J. M. Coetzee
He continues to teach because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him humility, brings it home to him who he is in the world. The irony does not escape him: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing.

J. M. Coetzee