J. M. Coetzee Quotes

Good God, what does it matter? If life is a tragedy, or a farce, or a disaster, or anything else, what do I care! Let life be what it likes. Give me a drink, that's what I want just now.

There is no answer. It's okay. But even if it wasn't okay, what am I supposed to do?

I tend not to worry about things I can't do anything about. It's not in my nature to spend too much time thinking.

Life is a series of avoiding horrible situations until ultimately you're dead. That's how I feel about things.

How do you dare to ask me for a solution? It's like asking Seneca for a solution. You remember what he did? He committed suicide!

What the hell, it doesn’t make any difference. Have a drink.

I cannot change anything, so I don't want to think about what I would have done.

Nothing fazes me anymore.

So we'll just let things take their course, and never be sorry.

I don't mind what happens.

Things just happen. What the hell.

I'm not a fatalist; even if I were, what could I do about it?

Enjoy yourself because you can't change anything anyway

You give up the world line by line. Stoically. And then one day you realize that your courage is farcical. It doesn't mean anything. You've become an accomplice in your own annihilation and there is nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left.

Despair ... is like a gas, odourless, tasteless, without nourishment. You breathe it in, your limbs relax, you cease to care, even at the moment when the steel touches your throat.

My philosophy of life can be summed up in four words: It can't be helped.

Let whatever is going to happen to me happen. I'm expecting the worst for myself and I'm resigned to it.

I don't care about losses anymore.

There is nothing you can do about it but sit back and watch.

Honestly, I just assume that whatever is going to happen to me is going to happen. There it goes: someone is there, someone isn't there. This girl is here. This food is here. I think the clever people are the ones who do a little as possible.

'Weary Willie' is very real to me. He is a man who has given up. The boat has gone and left him. The cards are stacked against him. He's content to make out with what he's got. He knows he'll go no further.

Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.

One victory more or less doesn't make the difference for me now.

I do get cynical, but what can you do? It doesn't make any difference.

I don't believe in expending energy on something you can't do anything about. If there was some easy way of fixing things, I'd probably do it.