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J. M. Coetzee

J. M. Coetzee Quotes

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Famous J. M. Coetzee Quotes

“You think you know what is just and what is not. I understand. We all think we know." I had no doubt, myself, then, that at each moment each one of us, man, woman, child, perhaps even the poor old horse turning the mill-wheel, knew what was just: all creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice. "But we live in a world of laws," I said to my poor prisoner, "a world of the second-best. There is nothing we can do about that. We are fallen creatures. All we can do is to uphold the laws, all of us, without allowing the memory of justice to fade.”

ThinkingKnowsMenWorldChildrenSaidMomentsLawCan DoMemoriesJusticePoorDoubtCreaturesHorseFallenWheelsNo DoubtAllowingPrisonerFadesMen WomenMillsYou Think You KnowSecond Best
Author:J. M. Coetzee
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“But the truth, he knows, is otherwise. His pleasure in living has been snuffed out. Like a leaf on a stream, like a puffball on a breeze, he has begun to float towards his end. He sees it quite clearly, and it fills him with (the word will not go away) despair. The blood of life is leaving his body and despair is taking its place, despair that is like a gas, odourless, tasteless, without nourishment. You breathe it in, your limbs relax, you cease to care, even at the moment when the steel touches your throat.”

KnowsHas BeensEndsMomentsBodyCareLife IsPleasureBloodDespairLeavingBreatheCeaseStreamsRelaxGasGoing AwayThroatSteelLeafsBreezeLimbsFloatsNourishment
Author:J. M. Coetzee
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“But it is the knowledge of how contingent my unease is, how dependent on a baby that wails beneath my window one day and does not wail the next, that brings the worst shame to me, the greatest indifference to annihilation. I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering. I ought never to have taken my lantern to see what was going on in the hut by the granary. On the other hand, there was no way, once I had picked up the lantern, for me to put it down again. The knot loops in upon itself; I cannot find the end.”

KnowsWayDoeHas BeensEndsHandsSeemsNextTakenToo MuchWorstBabyOughtOne DayWindowShameIndifferenceDependentKnotsAnnihilationLoopsRecoveringHutsLanterns
Book:Waiting for the Barbarians: A Novel
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“To me, a philosopher who says that the distinction between human and nonhuman depends on whether you have a white or a black skin, and a philosopher who says that the distinction between human and nonhuman depends on whether or not you know the difference between a subject and a predicate, are more alike than they are unlike.”

KnowsHumansBlackDifferencesWhiteAnimalSubjectsDependsEthicsSkinsPhilosopherDistinctionPetAnimal EthicsBlack Skin
Book:Elizabeth Costello
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