Lebanon, Israel, Ireland, South Africa - wherever there is a bleeding sore on the body of the world, the same hard-eyed narrow-minded fanatics are busy, indifferent to life, in love with death.
From J. M. Coetzee
In order to be cruel we have to close our hearts to the suffering of the other.
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.
Everyone seems to see bleakness and despair in my books. I don't read them that way. I see myself as writing comic books, books about ordinary people trying to live ordinary, dull, happy lives while the world is falling to pieces around them.
We are not by nature cruel.
There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind.
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.
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.
The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness.
The idea of writer as sage is pretty much dead today. I would certainly feel very uncomfortable in the role.
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