# Quote — J. M. Coetzee, Foe

> At last I could row no further. My hands were blistered, my back was burned, my body ached. With a sigh, making barely a splash, I slipped overboard. With slow strokes, my long hair floating about me, like a flower of the sea, like an anemone, like a jellyfish of the kind you see in the waters of Brazil, I swam towards the strange island, for a while swimming as I had rowed, against the current, then all at once free of its grip, carried by the waves into the bay and on to the beach.

- Author: [J. M. Coetzee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee.md)
- Book: [Foe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/foe.md)
- Page: 5
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._M._Coetzee#Foe_(1986)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/foe/at-last-i-could

## More from this book

> But this is not a place of words. Each syllable, as it comes out, is caught and filled with water and diffused. This is a place where bodies have their own signs. It is the home of Friday.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/foe/but-this-is-not.md)

> Nothing I have forgotten is worth the remembering.

p. 17 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/foe/nothing-i-have.md)

> Return to me the substance I have lost, Mr. Foe. That is my entreaty.

p. 51 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/foe/return-to-me-the.md)