As you see, I do not treat the creation of fiction, that to say the invention and development of fantasies,as a form of abstract thought. I dont wish to deny the uses of the intellect,but sometimes one has the intuition that the intellect by itself will lead one nowhere.
J. M. CoetzeeBut he cannot see a connection between the end of yearning and the end of poetry. Is that what growing up amounts to: growing out of yearning, of passion, of all intensities of the soul?
J. M. CoetzeeWhen we are stirred to lament the loss of the gods, it is more than likely the gods who are doing the stirring.
J. M. CoetzeeThat 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. CoetzeeIn 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? (Susan Barton)
J. M. Coetzee