# Quote — J. M. Coetzee, Youth

> It continues to astound him that people can be as clever as people are in the computer industry, yet have no outside interests beyond cars and house prices. — Chapter 18, page 149.

- Author: [J. M. Coetzee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee.md)
- Book: [Youth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/youth.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._M._Coetzee#Youth:_Scenes_from_Provincial_Life_II_(2002)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/youth/it-continues-to-astound

## More from this book

> How can anyone in England understand what brings people from the far corners of the earth to die on a wet, miserable island which they detest and to which they have no ties? — Chapter 18, page 148.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/youth/how-can-anyone.md)

> He does not as yet know England well enough to do England in prose. He is not even sure he can do the parts of London he is familiar with, the London of crowds trudging to work, of cold and rain, of bedsitters with curtainless windows and forty-watt bulbs. — Chapter 7, page 63.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/youth/he-does-not.md)

> Once upon a time, when he was still an innocent child, he believed that cleverness was the only yardstick that mattered, that as long as he was clever enough he would attain everything he desired. Going to university put him in his place. The university showed him he was not the cleverest, not by a long chalk. — Chapter 8, page 65.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/youth/once-upon-a-time.md)