In order to be cruel we have to close our hearts to the suffering of the other.

Next quotes

• J. M. Coetzee:

  In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as,

• J. M. Coetzee:

  If there were a better, clearer, shorter way of saying what the fiction says, then why not scrap th

• J. M. Coetzee:

  If it is indeed impossible - or at least very difficult - to inhabit the consciousness of an animal

• J. M. Coetzee:

  I tend to resist invitations to interpret my own fiction.

• J. M. Coetzee:

  I see no marks of Wordsworths style of writing or style of thinking in my own work, yet Wordsworth

• J. M. Coetzee:

  I say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not

• J. M. Coetzee:

  Elizabeth, Lady C, claims to be writing at the limits of language. Would it not be insulting to her

• J. M. Coetzee:

  As you see, I do not treat the creation of fiction, that to say the invention and development of fa

• J. M. Coetzee:

  As for September 11, let us not too easily grant the Americans possession of that date on the calen

• J. M. Coetzee:

  The end of confession is to tell the truth to and for oneself.