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I cannot live with someone who can’t live without me.

Nadine Gordimer

It’s easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.
NADINE GORDIMER

Aside Dormer Easier Face Former Humanity Mask Master Put Recognise Slave Underneath
You can’t change a regime on the basis of compassion. There’s got to be something harder.
NADINE GORDIMER

Basis Change Compassion Got Harder Regime Something
Exile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.
NADINE GORDIMER

Appear Censorship Exile Exist Fragment Genius Index Joyce Longer Mode Place Work
Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life.
NADINE GORDIMER

Country Fall Learn Life Sent Surface Through
It was a miracle; it was all a miracle: and one ought to have known, from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror.
NADINE GORDIMER

Horror Known Miracle One Ought Saint Suffer
Keenness of hearing revives when one is alone.
NADINE GORDIMER

Alone Hear Keenness One Review
Success sometimes may be defined as a disaster put on hold. Qualified. Has to be.
NADINE GORDIMER

Define Disaster Hold Qualified Sometimes Success
A desert is a place without expectation.
NADINE GORDIMER

Desert Expectation Place Without
The Communist Party is very popular in South Africa, especially among the young people. Never having had a chance to travel, and having suffered so much under capitalism, they still can’t believe that the Russian people themselves have rejected it.
NADINE GORDIMER

Among Communist Country Especially Party People Popular Young
What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there’s another force from inside battling to make us something else.
NADINE GORDIMER

Course Explain Include Life Mystery Personally Purpose Really Write
Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.
NADINE GORDIMER

Continuing Convenience Definition Gap Menn Narrow Perhaps Progress Women
Well, you know, in the fundamentalist milieu of the Afrikaners, there was a sense that they were a chosen people, that they were bringing civilization to the blacks.
NADINE GORDIMER

Bring Chosen Country Fundamental People Sense Well
If one will always have to feel white first, and African second, it would be better not to stay on in Africa.
NADINE GORDIMER

Always Better Country Feel First Second Stay While Will
I never talk about what I’m writing about currently, never. It’s private work on your own, no need or obligation to talk about it. Writers are made into performers these days, including myself, but there are some instances in which I will not perform.
NADINE GORDIMER

Currently Need never No Obligation Own Private Talk Work Write
From Ernest Hemingway’s stories I learned to listen within my stories for what went unsaid by my characters.
NADINE GORDIMER

Character Country From Learn Listen People Person Place Story Unsaid Went
I’m a candle flame that sways in currents of air you can’t see. You need to be the one who steadies me to burn.
NADINE GORDIMER

Air Always Burn Candle Current Frame Need One Sea Steadies

I cannot live with someone who can’t live without me.

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I cannot live with someone who can’t live without me.

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