‘That’s very philosophical’
‘Yes. When all else fails, philosophize.’ (60)
Evening falls. they are not hungry, but they eat. Eating is a ritual, and rituals make things easier. (111)
All at once he has become a recluse, a country recluse. the end of roving. Though the heart be still as loving and the moon be still as bright. Who would have thought it would come to an end so soon and so suddenly: the roving, the loving! (120)
He is not, he hopes, a sentimentalist. [...] he avoids saying to her, ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ in order not to have to hear her say in return, ’someone has to do it.’ (143)
He saves the honour of corpses because there is no one else stupid enough to do it. This is what he is becoming: stupid, daft, wrongheaded. (146)
She rests her head on her arms; her shoulders heave as she gives in. Again the feeling washed over him: listlessness, indifference, but also weightlessness, as if he has been eaten away from inside and only the eroded shell of his heart remains. How, he thinks to himself, can a man in this state find words, find music that will bring back the dead? (156)
-Coetzee

