Foe (J M Coetzee novel)

Foe (published 1986) is a Novel by J M Coetzee, a South African Writer and a  Nobel Prize in Literature winner in 2003. Foe is  woven around the existing plot of Robinson Crusoe.

Quotes

 * Crushed under his soles whole clusters of the thorns that had pierced my skin.”
 * Part 1, Page 7.


 * The stranger (who was of course the Cruso I told you of).”
 * Part 1, Page 9.


 * Nothing I have forgotten is worth the remembering.”
 * Part 1, Page 17.


 * At last I could row no further.
 * Susan Barton, Part 1


 * But those whom we have abused we customarily grow to hate.
 * Susan Barton, Part 1.


 * Not every man who bears the mark of the castaway is a castaway by heart.
 * Cruso, Part 1.


 * I would rather be the author of my story than have lies told about me.
 * Susan Barton, Part 1.


 * It was I who shared Cruso's bed and closed Cruso's eyes.
 * Susan Barton, Part 1.


 * A being without substance, a ghost beside the true body of Cruso.
 * Susan Barton, Part 2.


 * To live in silence is to live like the whales.
 * Susan Barton, Part 2.


 * The less they seem to me like fields waiting to be planted, the more like tombs.
 * Susan Barton, Part 2.


 * In a sea of fallen leaves we sit, she and I, two substantial beings.
 * Susan Barton, Part 2.


 * He is the child of his silence.
 * Susan Barton, Part 3.


 * I do not love him, but he is mine.
 * Susan Barton, Part 2


 * We can bring [the island] to life only by setting it within a larger story.
 * Foe, Part 3.


 * Cannibals are no less dull than Englishmen.
 * Susan Barton, Part 3.


 * I am a free woman who asserts her freedom by telling her story.
 * Susan Barton, Part 3.


 * This is the place where bodies are their own signs.
 * The narrator, Part 4.


 * would gladly now recount to you the history of this singular Cruso, as I heard it from his own lips. But the stories he told me were so various and so hard to reconcile one with another, that I was more and more driven to conclude age and isolation had taken their toll on his memory, he no longer knew for sure what truth, what fancy.
 * Susan, part 1, page 12.


 * I will leave behind my terraces and walls," he said. "They will be enough. They will be more than enough.”
 * Cruso, page 18.


 * Perhaps they wanted to prevent him from ever telling his story, who he was, where his home lay, how it came about that he was taken.
 * Cruso, page 23.


 * Return to me the substance I have lost, Mr. Foe. That is my entreaty.
 * Susan, page 51.


 * To tell the truth in all its substance you must have quiet and a comfortable chair away from all distraction, and a window to stare through and then the knack of seeing waves when there are fields before your eyes…
 * Susan, page 52.


 * My thoughts ran to Friday… Had I not been there to restrain him, would he in his hunger have eaten the babe? I told myself I did him wrong to think of him as a cannibal or worse, a devourer of the dead. But Cruso had planted the seed in my mind, and now I could not look on Friday’s lips without calling to mind what mean must once have passed them.
 * Susan, page 106.


 * This is the place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday.
 * Susan, page 157.