J. M. Coetzee Quotes

There had been times when he knew, somewhere in him, that he would get used to it, whatever it was, because he had learnt that some hard things became softer after a very little while.

It doesn't matter how you travel it, it's the same road. It doesn't get any easier when you get bigger, it gets harder. And it will kill you if you let it.

I'm trained to difficulties; difficulties can't be eliminated from life.

We imagine things - that we wouldn't be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. We have no choice, so we do it.

I can cope with a smack in the face, or at least I should be able to after the number I have had. This one was just run-of-the-mill for me.

What life throws at you - you just have to learn how to hit it, which is a baseball metaphor. The ball's outside, you hit to the right. You don't let them go by.

Expand your notion of what adversity is.

Life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.

Nietzsche famously said "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But what he failed to stress is that it almost kills you.

Life sometimes brings enormous difficulties and challenges that seem just too hard to bear. But bear them you can, and bear them you will, and your life can have a purpose.

When life is hard, you have to change.

Life is not for the faint of heart.

Like running trying to live a good life has to hurt a little bit, or we're not running hard enough, not really trying.

Life has this in common with prizefighting: if you've received a belly blow, it's likely to be followed by a right to the jaw.

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!

Life has a way of breaking even the strongest among us.

A hard life improves the vision.

When you think life is tough, it can get a lot tougher.

No human being is immune to adversity or personal setbacks.

I tried, it was hard, I quit, the end. Story of my life.

Life has a way of kicking one along like a football, or so I've found. Fate had never dealt me personally a particularly easy time, but that was OK, that was normal. Most people, it seemed to me, took their turn to be football. Most survived. Some didn't.

Under pressure, would I fold and disappear, or would I show everyone that when bad things happen, you fight?

The strain of life is what builds our strength. If there is no strain, there will be no strength.

Surviving, that's my plan.

Of course, it's always bad to lose, of course it's always a hardship when you lose to yesterday's miners or yesterday's tractor drivers. But life is life. It'll surely go on.