A French or English writer has thousands of years of written tradition behind him…We on the other hand are… — J. M. Coetzee

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.

They lost their humanity, in our eyes, because of a certain willed ignorance on their part.

She is not sure, as she listens to her own voice, whether she believes any longer in what she is saying.