Summertime Quotes

“A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“Perhaps; but I am a difficult person to live with. My difficulty consists in not wanting to live with other people.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“Well, that is what you risk when you fall in love. You risk losing your dignity.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“That was our first time together. Interesting, an interesting experience, but not earth-shaking. But then, I never expected it to be earth-shaking, not with him.

What I was determined to avoid was emotional entanglement. A passing fling was one thing, an affair of the heart quite another.

Of myself I was fairly sure. I was not about to lose my heart to a man about whom I knew next to nothing.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“Yet what happened in fact? In the middle of the night John woke up and saw me sleeping beside him with no doubt a look of peace on my face, even of bliss, bliss is not unattainable in this world. He saw me—saw me as I was at that moment—took fright, hurriedly strapped the armour back over his heart, this time with chains and a double padlock, and stole out into the darkness.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“And anyway, I suspect he secretly liked it when a woman was cold and distant”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“Prose, in his experience, calls for many more words than poetry. There is no point in embarking on prose if one lacks confidence that one will be alive the next day to carry on with the task.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“How many of the ragged workingmen who pass him in the street are secret authors of works that will outlast them: roads, walls, pylons? Immortality of a kind, a limited immortality, is not so hard to achieve after all. Why then does he persist in inscribing marks on paper, in the faint hope that people not yet born will take the trouble to decipher them?”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“The mistake the two of us made,’ I said, ‘was that we skimped the foreplay. I’m not blaming you, it was as much my fault as yours, but it was a fault nonetheless.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“The path that leads through Latin and alebra is not the path to material success. But it may suggest much more: that understanding things is a waste of time; that if you want to succeed in the world and have a happy family and a nice home and a BMW you should not try to understand things but just add up the numbers or press the buttons or do whatever else it is that marketers are so richly rewarded for doing”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“What I call my philosophy of teaching is in fact a philosophy of learning. It comes out of Plato, modified. Before true learning can occur, I believe, there must be in the student's heart a certain yearning for the truth, a certain fire. The true student burns to know. In the teacher she recognizes, or apprehends, the one who has come closer than herself to the truth. So much does she desire the truth embodied in the teacher that she is prepared to burn her old self up to attain it. For his part, the teacher recognizes and encourages the fire in the student, and responds to it by burning with an intenser light. Thus together the two of them rise to a higher realm. So to speak.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“Well, cast your mind back to the books he wrote. What is the one theme that keeps recurring from book to book? It is that the woman doesn’t fall in love with the man. The man may or may not love the woman; but the woman never loves the man. What do you think that theme reflects? My guess, my highly informed guess, is that it reflects his life experience. Women didn’t fall for him—not women in their right senses. They inspected him, maybe they even tried him our. Then they moved on.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“But then, what are books for if not to change our lives?”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“The path that leads through Latin and alebra is not the path to material success. But it may suggest much more: that understanding things is a waste of time; that if you want to succeed in the world and have a happy family and a nice home and a BMW you should not try to understand things but just add up the numbers or press the buttons or do whatever else it is that marketers are so richly rewarded for doing.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“I remember asking John, after Dusklands, what new project he had on the go. His answer was vague. 'There is always something or the other I am working on', he said. 'If I yield to the seduction of not working, what would I do with myself? What would there be to live for? I would have to shoot myself.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“No, of course John did not love his father, he did not love anybody, he was not built for love. But he did feel guilty about his father. He felt guilty and therefore behaved dutifully. With certain lapses.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“Si imaginamos al niño como una planta, el educador debería alimentar las raíces de la planta y observar su crecimiento, en lugar de podar sus ramas y darle forma, como predican los kuyperistas.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Verano (Escenas de una vida de provincias 3)

“Creía que la historia de nuestra vida es nuestra para edificarla como deseemos, dentro de las restricciones impuestas por el mundo real e incluso contra ellas,”
― J.M. Coetzee, Verano (Escenas de una vida de provincias 3)

“detectaba en los ojos de los babuinos mayores los aguijonazos de la melancolía, el nacimiento de la conciencia incipiente de su mortalidad.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Verano (Escenas de una vida de provincias 3)

“John no estaba hecho para el amor, no estaba construido de esa manera, no estaba construido para encajar en otro ser o para que otro ser encajara en él. Como una esfera. Como una bola de cristal. No había manera de conectar con él. Tal es mi conclusión, mi conclusión madurada.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Verano (Escenas de una vida de provincias 3)

“No, yo ya estoy casada, gracias –le dije–. Búscate una mujer más apropiada que yo, alguien que te haga salir de ti mismo.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Verano (Escenas de una vida de provincias 3)

“Parecía fuera de lugar, como un pájaro, una de esas aves que no vuelan; o como un científico abstraído que ha salido por error de su laboratorio. También tenía un aire de sordidez, un aire de fracaso.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Verano (Escenas de una vida de provincias 3)

“Because it is not in the nature of love affairs for the lovers to see each other whole and steady.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“Che cosa ci facciamo qui? Era quella, da sempre, la domanda non pronunciata. Lui lo sapeva e lo sapeva anche lei. La sua lettera, per quanto vilmente, aveva almeno accennato a quella domanda: Che ci facciamo in questa sterile parte del mondo? Perché passiamo la vita ammazzandoci così di lavoro se questo posto non era fatto perché ci vivesse la gente, se tutto il progetto di umanizzare questa terra era sbagliato fin dall'inizio?”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“I hope that in the afterlife we will get a chance, each of us, to say our sorries to the people we have wronged.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“It used to be that he, John, had too little employment. Now that is about to change. Now he will have as much employment as he can handle, as much and more. He is going to have to abandon some of his personal projects and be a nurse. Alternatively, if he will not be a nurse, he must announce to his father: I cannot face the prospect of ministering to you day and night. I am going to abandon you. Goodbye. One or the other: there is no third way.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“Even if you choose someone who is not necessarily the love of your life, married life will be better than what you have now, with just your father and yourself. It is not good to sleep alone night after night.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Summertime

“Cuando un hombre y una mujer están enamorados crean su propia música, es algo que sucede instintivamente, no necesitan lecciones.”
― John Coetze, Summertime

“Probablemente piensa que lo mismo les sucede a los artistas en general, a los artistas masculinos, que no están hechos para lo que llamo amor; que no pueden entregarse del todo, o no están dispuestos a hacerlo, por la sencilla razón de que tienen una esencia secreta que han de preservar por el bien de su arte.”
― John Coetze, Summertime