The sun's touch is kind. - J. M. Coetzee

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.

She no longer believes very strongly in belief... Belief may be no more, in the end, than a source of energy, like a battery which one clips into an idea to make it run. As happens when one writes: believing whatever has to be believed in order to get the job done.

I find myself wondering too whether he has a private ritual of purification, carried out behind closed doors, to enable him to return and break bread with other men.”