In every story there is a silence, some sight concealed, some word unspoken, I believe. Till we have spoken the unspoken we have not come to the heart of the story. - J.M. Coetzee
All of which makes up a story I do not choose to tell. I choose not to tell it because to no one, not even to you, do I own proof that I am a substantial being with a substantial history in the world. - J.M. Coetzee
The body, I had been taught, wants only to live. Suicide, I had understood, is an act not of the body against itself but of the will against the body. Yet here I beheld a body that was going to die rather than change its nature. - J.M. Coetzee
Die Wahrheit wird nicht im Zorn gesprochen. Die Wahrheit, wenn sie denn gesprochen wird, wird im Geist der Liebe gesprochen. - J.M. Coetzee
The secret of happiness is not doing what we like but in liking what we do. - J.M. Coetzee
Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for? - J.M. Coetzee