I see no marks of Wordsworths style of writing or style of thinking in my own work, yet Wordsworth is a constant presence when I write about human beings and their relations to the natural world. J. M. Coetzee Read Quote
Strictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals. J. M. Coetzee Read Quote
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 some people, while to other people it is just another day. J. M. Coetzee Read Quote
Islamic fundamentalism in its activist manifestation is bad news. Religious fundamentalism in general is bad news. We know about religious fundamentalism in South Africa. Calvinist fundamentalism has been an unmitigated force of benightedness in our history. J. M. Coetzee Read Quote
If it is indeed impossible – or at least very difficult – to inhabit the consciousness of an animal, then in writing about animals there is a temptation to project upon them feelings and thoughts that may belong only to our own human mind and heart. J. M. Coetzee Read Quote
The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint. J. M. Coetzee Read Quote
If there were a better, clearer, shorter way of saying what the fiction says, then why not scrap the fiction? J. M. Coetzee Read Quote
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 could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life. J. M. Coetzee Read Quote
I read a great deal as a child. A lot of children go through a phase of reading in a literally voracious way. It is their primary imaginative activity. Maybe that’s an experience which is not so common any more with the presence of television in every home. J. M. Coetzee Read Quote
