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J. M. Coetzee

J. M. Coetzee Quotes

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Famous J. M. Coetzee Quotes

“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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“I want to find a way of speaking to fellow human beings that will be cool rather than heated, philosophical rather than polemical, that will bring enlightenment rather than seeking to divide us into the righteous and the sinners, the saved and the damned, the sheep and the goats.”

WayWantHumansHuman BeingsEnlightenmentPhilosophicalFellowsSeekingSavedSinnerDividesSheepRighteousGoatsBeing Cool
Book:The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]
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“Some years ago I wrote a book called The House on Eccles Street. To write this book I had to think my way into the existence of Marion Bloom...Marion Bloom was a figment of James Joyce's imagination. If I can think my way into the existence of a being who has never existed, then I can think my way into the existence of a bat or a chimpanzee or an oyster, any being with whom I share the substrate of life.”

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Author:J. M. Coetzee
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“...the program of scientific experimentation that leads you to conclude that animals are imbeciles is profoundly anthropocentric. It values being able to find your way out of a sterile maze, ignoring the fact that if the researcher who designed the maze were to be parachuted into the jungles of Borneo, he or she would be dead of starvation in a week...If I as a human being were told that the standards by which animals are being measured in these experiments are human standards, I would be insulted.”

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Book:Elizabeth Costello
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