He would not mind hearing Petrus's story one day. But preferably not reduced to English. More and more he is convinced that English is an unfit medium for the truth of South Africa. Stretches of English code whole sentences long have thickened, lost their articulations, their articulateness, their articulatedness. Like a dinosaur expiring and settling in the mud, the language has stiffened. Pressed into the mold of English, Petrus's story would come out arthritic, bygone"(117).
J. M. CoetzeeWhere civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of dependent people, I decided, I was opposed to civilization.
J. M. CoetzeeStrictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals.
J. M. Coetzee(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.
J. M. CoetzeeThe 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. CoetzeeIf you were blind you would hardly have fallen in love in the first place. But now, do you truly wish to see the beloved in the cold clarity of the visual apparatus? It may be in your better interest to throw a veil over the gaze, so as to keep her alive in her archetypal, goddesslike form.
J. M. CoetzeeState censorship presents itself as a bulwark between society and forces of subversion or moral corruption. To dismiss this account of its own motives by the state as insincere would be a mistake: it is a feature of the paranoid logic of the censoring mentality that virtue ... must be innocent, and therefore, unless protected, vulnerable to the wiles of vice.
J. M. Coetzee