Date: 1986

"For surely, with every day that passes, our memories grow less certain, as even a statue in marble is worn away by rain, till at last we can no longer tell what shape the sculptor's hand gave it."

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)

Date: 1997

"And as soon as he sees him, he knows that this boy will be important to him, important beyond all measure, not because of who he is (he may never see him again) but because of the thoughts that are going on in his head, that burst out of him like a swarm of bees."

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)

Date: 1997

"Nevertheless, the memory lies like a weight upon him, the memory of the soft resistance of flesh and bone, and then the grinding"

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)

Date: 1997

"He does not want to know. So much does he not want to know that he can feel a hand go up inside his own head to block his ears, block his sight."

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)

Date: 2002

"But of late a fog has descended on his mind."

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)

Date: 2002

"And anyway, whether mad or miserable, how can one write when tiredness is like a gloved hand gripping one's brain and squeezing?"

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)

Date: 2002

"For he has it in him, he knows, his imagination is of the same colour as Brodsky's."

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)

Date: 2002

"The threat of the toy by which he earns his living, the threat that makes it more than just a toy, is that it will burn either-or paths in the brains of its users and thus lock them irreversibly into its binary logic."

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)