Dara B

“No consciousness that we would recognize as consciousness. Not awareness, as far as we can make out, of a self with a history. What I mind is what tends to come next. They have no consciousness therefore. Therefore what? Therefore we are free to use them for our own ends Therefore we are free to kill them? Why? What is so special about the form of consciousness that we recognize that makes killing a bearer of it a crime while killing an animal goes unpunished?”
― J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello

“If Messenger would be to open his mouth right now, his voice would be a terrible wound.”
― NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names

“It always puzzled him, when he was a child, that a woman who wrote books for a living should be so bad at telling bedtime stories.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello

“If you are stealing something it’s better if it’s small and hideable or something you can eat quickly and be done with, like guavas. This way, people can’t see you with the thing to be reminded that you are a shameless thief and that you stole it from them, so I don’t know what the white people were trying to do in the first place, stealing not just a tiny piece but a whole country. Who can ever forget you stole something like that?”
― NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names