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Quote by J. M. Coetzee

Work

The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]

This Princeton Classic volume delves into the profound and varied lives of animals, examining their behaviors, emotions, and interactions with their environments. The book offers a comprehensive look at animal life from a philosophical perspective, exploring themes of consciousness, consciousness, and the human-animal relationship. more

Author

J. M. Coetzee
J. M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee is a South African-born Australian novelist known for his profound psychological insights and critical exploration of South Africa's apartheid history. His works have won numerous literary awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature. more

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“I went to work at seven in the morning. Around noon time we got the watery soup. And we worked until seven or eight or nine at night, sometimes later. And then I walked back home - there was no public transportation - into that shared room. And if there was food we would prepare an evening meal depending on what was available. And then probably go to bed because it was cold most the time. And then start the day all over again, six or seven days a week.”

“The things I saw beggar description ... The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty, and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where there were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to "propaganda".”

“The smell of death overwhelmed us even before we passed through the stockade. More than 3200 naked, emaciated bodies had been flung into shallow graves. Others lay in the streets where they had fallen. ... Eisenhower's face whitened into a mask. Patton walked over to a corner and sickened. I was too revolted to speak. For here death had been so fouled by degradation that it both stunned and numbed us.”