# Quote — J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians

> It would cost little to march them out into the desert . . . to have them dig, with their last strength, a pit large enough for all of them to lie in (or even dig it for them!), and, leaving them buried there forever and forever, to come back to the walled town full of new intentions, new resolutions.”

- Author: [J. M. Coetzee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee.md)
- Book: [Waiting for the Barbarians](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/waiting-for-the-barbarians.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._M._Coetzee#Waiting_for_the_Barbarians_(1980)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/waiting-for-the-barbarians/it-would-cost

## More from this book

> How can I accept that disaster has overtaken my life when the world continues to move so tranquilly through its cycles?

p. 102 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/waiting-for-the-barbarians/how-can-i-accept.md)

> Truly, man was not made to live alone!

p. 87 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/waiting-for-the-barbarians/truly-man-was.md)

> It is the knowledge of how contingent my unease is, how dependent on a baby that wails beneath my window one day and does not wail the next, that brings the worst shame to me, the greatest indifference to annihilation.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/waiting-for-the-barbarians/it-is-the.md)