“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...”
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Author detail
John Maxwell Coetzee FRSL OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in the English language. He has won the Booker Prize (twice), the CNA Literary Award (thrice), the Jerusalem Prize, the Prix Femina étranger, and The Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and holds a number of other awards and honorary doctorates. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Coetzee)
Quotes
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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...”
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“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...”
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“Schmerz ist Wahrheit; alles andere wird angezweifelt.”
“Die Wahrheit wird nicht im Zorn gesprochen. Die Wahrheit, wenn sie denn gesprochen wird, wird im Geist der Liebe gesprochen.”
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“The masters of information have forgotten about poetry, where words may have a meaning quite different from what the lexicon says, where the metaphoric spark is always one jump ahead of the...”
“You are going to end up as one of those sad old men who poke around in rubbish bins.” “I’m going to end up in a hole in the ground... And so are you. So are we all.”
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“I truly believe I am not afraid of death. What I shrink from, I believe, is the shame of dying as stupid and befuddled as I am.”
“The secret of happiness is not doing what we like but in liking what we do.”
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“Asymmetrie [macht] Menschen unglücklich.”
“In der gegenwärtigen 'Kultur' geben sich wenige die Mühe, zwischen Aufrichtigkeit und dem Vorspielen von Aufrichtigkeit zu unterscheiden - ja, wenige sind zu dieser Unterscheidung überhaupt...”
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“Charakter ist Schicksal. Historie ist Gott.”
“Die Sache mit dem Sündenbock funktionierte wirklich, als noch religiöse Kraft dahinterstand. Man lud dem Ziegenbock die Sünden der Stadt auf und trieb ihn hinaus, und die Stadt war gereinigt...”
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“In a sudden and soundless eruption, as if he has fallen into a waking dream, a stream of images pours down, images of women he has known on two continents, some from so far away in time that...”
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“Why?' says the boy. 'Why? Because staying alive is more important than anything else.' 'Why is staying alive more important than anything?' He is about to answer, about to produce the correc...”
“There is nothing more inimical to writing than the spirit of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism abhors the play of signs, the endlessness of writing. Fundamentalism means nothing more or less th...”
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“As for September 11, let us not too easily grant the Americans possession of that date on the calendar. Like May 1 or July 14 or December 25, September 11 may seem full of significance to so...”
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“In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who...”
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“Elizabeth, Lady C, claims to be writing at the limits of language. Would it not be insulting to her if I were diligently to follow after her, explaining what she means but is not smart enoug...”
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“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.”
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“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 abst...”
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