J. M. Coetzee Quotes

We are not by nature cruel. - J. M. Coetzee

There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind. - J. M. Coetzee

The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint. - J. M. Coetzee

The most important of all rights is the right to life, and I cannot foresee a day when domesticated animals will be granted that right in law. - J. M. Coetzee

The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness. - J. M. Coetzee

The idea of writer as sage is pretty much dead today. I would certainly feel very uncomfortable in the role. - J. M. Coetzee

That has always seemed to me one of the stranger aspects of literary fame: you prove your competence as a writer and an inventor of stories, and then people clamour for you to make speeches and tell them what you think about the world. - J. M. Coetzee

Strictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals. - J. M. Coetzee

My response, a dubious and hesitant one, is that it has been and may continue to be, in the time that is left to me, more productive to live out the question than to try to answer it in abstract terms. - J. M. Coetzee

In order to be cruel we have to close our hearts to the suffering of the other. - J. M. Coetzee

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