“We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“In a world of chance is there a better and a worse? We yield to a stranger's embrace or give ourselves to the waves; for the blink of an eyelid our vigilance relaxes; we are asleep; and when we awake, we have lost the direction of our lives. What are these blinks of an eyelid, against which the only defence is an eternal and inhuman wakefulness? Might they not be the cracks and chinks through which another voice, other voices, speak in our lives? By what right do we close our ears to them?”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“He does not know what freedom is. Freedom is a word, less than a word, a noise, one of the multitude of noises I make when I open my mouth.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“His mouth opens. From inside him comes a slow stream, without breath, without interruption. It flows up through his body and out upon me; it passes through the cabin, through the wreck; washing the cliffs and shores of the island, it runs northward and southward to the ends of the earth. Soft and cold, dark and unending, it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“It seemed to me that all things were possible on the island, all tyrannies and cruelties, though in small; and if, in despite of what was possible, we lived at peace with another, surely this was proof that certain laws unknown to us held sway, or else that we had been following the promptings of our hearts all this time, and our hearts had not betrayed us.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“We are accustomed to believe that our world was created by God speaking the Word; but I ask, may it not rather be that he wrote it, wrote a Word so long we have yet to come to the end of it? May it not be that God continually writes the world, the world and all that is in it?”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“Yet is it not the heart but the members of play that elevate us above the beasts: the fingers with which we touch the clavichord or the flute, the tongue with which we jest and lie and seduce. Lacking members of play, what is there left for beasts to do when they are bored but sleep?”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“An aversion came over me that we feel for all the mutilated. Why is that so, do you think? Because they put us in mind of what we would rather forget: how easily, at the stroke of a sword or a knife, wholeness and beauty are forever undone? Perhaps. But toward you I felt a deeper revulsion. I could not put out of mind the softness of the tongue, its softness and wetness, and the fact that it does not live in the light; also how helpless it is before the knife, once the barrier of teeth has been passed. The tongue is like the heart, in that way, is it not?”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“as to who among us is a ghost and who not I have nothing to say: it is a question we can only stare at in silence, like a bird before a snake, hoping it will not swallow us.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“I stretched out my arms and laid my palms on the earth, and, yes, the rocking persisted, the rocking of the island as it sailed through the sea and the night bearing into the future its freight of gulls and sparrows and fleas and apes and castaways, all unconscious now, save me. I fell asleep smiling.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“When I reflect on my story I seem to exist only as the one who came, the one who witnessed, the one who longed to be gone: a being without substance, a ghost beside the true body of Cruso. Is that the fate of all storytellers?”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“You will believe me when I say the life we lead grows less and less distinct from the life we led of Cruso's island. Sometimes I wake up not knowing where I am. The world is full of islands, said Cruso once. His words ring truer every day.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“Is that the secret meaning of the word story, do you think: a storing place of memories?”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“as to who among us is a ghost and who not I have nothing to say: it is a question we can only stare at in silence, like a”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“Navikli smo da verujemo kako je ovaj naš svet stvorio Bog izrekavši Reč; ali sad pitam, zar ne bi moglo biti da ga je ispisao, ispisao reč tako dugačku da tek treba da dospemo do njenog kraja? Nije li moguće da Bog neprekidno ispisuje svet, kako svet tako i sve što je u njemu?”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“Kako će on pisati ako ne ume da govori? Slova su ogledalo reči. I kad naizgled pišemo u tišini, naš zapis je slika i prilika govora koji teče u nama, bilo da je drugima ili nama samima upućen.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“Ponekad se pitam, reče, kako bi bilo da Božja stvorenja nemaju sna. Kad bismo čitav život provodili budni, da li bi nas to učinilo boljim ljudima ili gorim?”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“Poznati su mi kao i vama mnogi, mnogi načini da sami sebe zavaramo. Ali kako ćemo živeti ako ne verujemo da znamo ko smo i ko smo oduvek bili?”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“I have a desire to be saved which I must call immoderate.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“We cannot shrink in disgust from our neighbour's touch because his hands, that are clean now, were once dirty. We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“Laws are made for one purpose only (...) to hold us in check when our desires grow immoderate. As long as our desires are moderate we have no need of laws.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
“You will believe me when I say the life we lead grows less and less distinct from the life we led on Cruso's island. Sometimes I wake up not knowing where I am. The world is full of islands, said Cruso once. His words ring truer every day.”
― J.M. Coetzee, quote from Foe
J.M. Coetzee
Born place: in Cape Town, South Africa
Born date February 9, 1940
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“feel as if I’m visiting home in a dream, where everything yet nothing is the way it should be, where the best of what you have and what you wish for are briefly, tantalizingly united. Tealing”
― Julia Glass, quote from Three Junes
“Americans of faith should try as hard to save the lives of African women as the lives of unborn fetuses.”
― Nicholas D. Kristof, quote from Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
“Perfection is some mythical state that we can never achieve”
― Carrie Jones, quote from Entice
“We've learnt to appreciate and respect and love someone who's different from us. It is very easy to accept and love those who are like us, but to love someone different is very hard, and you helped us to do that.”
― Luis Sepúlveda, quote from The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly
“The military authorities were concerned that soldiers going home on leave would demoralize the home population with horror stories of the Ostfront. ‘You are under military law,’ ran the forceful reminder, ‘and you are still subject to punishment. Don’t speak about weapons, tactics or losses. Don’t speak about bad rations or injustice. The intelligence service of the enemy is ready to exploit it.’
One soldier, or more likely a group, produced their own version of instructions, entitled ‘Notes for Those Going on Leave.’ Their attempt to be funny reveals a great deal about the brutalizing affects of the Ostfront. ‘You must remember that you are entering a National Socialist country whose living conditions are very different to those to which you have been accustomed. You must be tactful with the inhabitants, adapting to their customs and refrain from the habits which you have come to love so much. Food: Do not rip up the parquet or other kinds of floor, because potatoes are kept in a different place. Curfew: If you forget your key, try to open the door with the round-shaped object. Only in cases of extreme urgency use a grenade. Defense Against Partisans: It is not necessary to ask civilians the password and open fire upon receiving an unsatisfactory answer. Defense Against Animals: Dogs with mines attached to them are a special feature of the Soviet Union. German dogs in the worst cases bite, but they do not explode. Shooting every dog you see, although recommended in the Soviet Union, might create a bad impression. Relations with the Civil Population: In Germany just because someone is wearing women’s clothes does not necessarily mean that she is a partisan. But in spite of this, they are dangerous for anyone on leave from the front. General: When on leave back to the Fatherland take care not to talk about the paradise existence in the Soviet Union in case everybody wants to come here and spoil our idyllic comfort.”
― Antony Beevor, quote from Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942–1943
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A Thousand Splendid...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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