Age of Iron Quotes

“How easy it is to love a child, how hard to love what a child turns into!”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“You told me," I said, "that I should turn this house into a boardinghouse for students. Well, there are better things I could do with it. I could turn it into a haven for beggars. I could run a soup kitchen and a dormitory. But I don't. Why not? Because the spirit of charity has perished in this country. Because those who accept charity despise it, while those who give give with a despairing heart. What is the point of charity when it does not go from heart to heart? What do you think charity is? Soup? Money? Charity: from the Latin word for the heart. It is as hard to receive as to give. it takes as much effort. I wish you would learn that. I wish you would learn something instead of just lying around."

A lie: charity, caritas, has nothing to do with the heart. But what does it matter if my sermons rest on false etymologies? He barely listens when i speak to him. Perhaps, despite those keen bird-eyes, he is more befuddled with drink than I know. Or perhaps, finally, he does not care. Care: the true root of charity. I look for him to care, and he does not. Because he is beyond caring. Beyond caring and beyond care”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“There is no lie that does not have at its core some truth. One must only know how to listen.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“Decency: the inexplicable: the ground of all ethics. Things we do not do. We do not stare when the soul leaves the body, but veil our eyes with tears or cover them with our hands. We do not stare at scars, which are places where the soul has struggled to leave and been forced back, closed up, sewn in.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“The dead cannot be cheated, cannot be betrayed, unless you carry them with you in your heart and do the crime there.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“Krew jak krew, moja czy twoja. Nie sposób było jednak, jak rozumiem to słowo, poddać się temu zaskoczeniu, zwolnić uścisk i nie usiłować jej zatamować. Dlaczego? — zadaję sobie pytanie. I odpowiadam. Ponieważ jest bezcenna, warta więcej niż złoto i brylanty. Ponieważ jest dobrem wyjątkowym, jedynym w swoim rodzaju, bankiem, wspólnym dobrem, użyczanym, nie dawanym, każdej żyjącej istocie, z natury swojej należącym jednak do wspólnej puli. Przydzielana z nadzieją, że będzie chroniona. Z pozoru żyje w nas, ale to tylko pozór; w istocie my żyjemy w niej. I ty, ciało z mojego ciała, krew z krwi mojej, krwawiąca co miesiąc na obcej ziemi.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“(I do not blame him, the future comes disguised, if it came naked we would be petrified by what we saw),”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“Niños de hierro, he pensado. Florence también es un poco de hierro. Es la edad del hierro. Después de la cual viene la edad del bronce. ¿Cuánto falta para que les llegue el turno de regresar a las edades más amables, la edad de la arcilla y la edad de tierra?”
― J. M. Coetzee, L'edat de ferro

“My life may as well be waste. We shoot these people as if they are waste, but in the end it is we whose lives are not worth living.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“Estás conmigo, pero no de la misma forma que estás en América, no cuando estabas cuando te marchaste, sino estando de una forma profunda e inmutable: como el amado, como ese que no muere. Es a tu alma a quien me dirijo, igual que será mi alma la que se quedará contigo cuando esta carta termine”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“Vivir, dijo Marco Aurelio, exige el talento del luchador, no del bailarín. Basta con mantenerte de pie: no hacen falta pasos hermosos”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“Dejarme ir a mí misma, dejarte ir a ti, dejar ir a una casa todavía llena de recuerdos: es duro, pero voy aprendiendo”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“But then in dreams we are always children.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“Thucydides wrote of people who made rules and followed them. Going by rule they killed entire classes of enemies without exception. Most of those who died felt, I am sure, that a terrible mistake was being made, that, whatever the rule was, it could not be meant for them. 'I--!': that was their last word as their throats were cut. A word of protest: I, the exception.

"Were they exceptions? The truth is, given time to speak, we would all claim to be exceptions. For each of us there is a case to be made. We all deserve the benefit of the doubt.

"But there are times when there is no time for all that close listening, all those exceptions, all that mercy. There is no time, so we fall back on the rule. And that is a great pity, the greatest pity. That is what you could have learned from Thucydides. It is a great pity when we find ourselves entering upon times like those. We should enter upon them with a sinking heart. They are by no means to be welcomed.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron

“One must love what is nearest, one must love what is to hand, as a dog loves".”
― J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron