# Quote — J. M. Coetzee, Foe

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

- Author: [J. M. Coetzee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee.md)
- Book: [Foe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/foe.md)
- Page: 51
- 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/return-to-me-the

## 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)

> Would gladly now recount to you the history of this singular Cruso, as I heard it from his own lips. But the stories he told me were so various and so hard to reconcile one with another, that I was more and more driven to conclude age and isolation had taken their toll on his memory, he no longer knew for sure what truth, what fancy.

p. 12 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/foe/would-gladly-now.md)