Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core. As though she had decided to go slack, die within herself for the durati… - J. M. Coetzee

As though she had decided to go slack, die within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its neck. So that everything done to her might be done, as it were, far away.

“But your own vegetarianism, Mrs. Costello,” says President Garrard, pouring oil on troubled waters: “it comes out of moral conviction, does it not?”
“No, I don't think so,” says his mother. “It comes out of a desire to save my soul.”
Now there truly is a silence, broken only by the clink of plates as the waitresses set baked Alaskas before them.
“Well, I have a great respect for it,” says Garrard. “As a way of life.”
“I'm wearing leather shoes,” says his mother. “I'm carrying a leather purse. I wouldn't have overmuch respect if I were you.”
“Consistency,” murmurs Garrard. “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Surely one can draw a distinction between eating meat and wearing leather.”
“Degrees of obscenity,” she replies.

The less they seem to me like fields waiting to be planted, the more like tombs.

She is no longer sure that people are always improved by what they read. Furthermore, she is not sure that writers who venture into the darker territories of the soul always return unscathed.