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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

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
The primacy of the word, basis of the human psyche, that has in our age been used for mind-bending persuasion and brain-washing pulp, disgraced by Gobbles and debased by advertising copy, remains a force for freedom that flies out between all bars.
NADINE GORDIMER

Basis Bend Brain Human Mind Percussion Primarily Psyche Pulp Use Wash Word
I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.
NADINE GORDIMER

Afraid Been Fail Many never Thing
when it comes to their essential faculty as writers, all writers are androgynous beings.
NADINE GORDIMER

Androgynous Being Come Essential Faculty Writer
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
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
Written words still have the amazing power to bring out the best and worst of human nature
NADINE GORDIMER

Amazing Best Bring Human Nature Power Word Worst Written
Disaster is private, in its way, as love is.
NADINE GORDIMER

Disaster Private Way Love
The facts are always less than what really happened.
NADINE GORDIMER

Always Fact Happen Less Really What
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
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
Literature is one of the few areas left where black and white feel some identity of purpose; we all struggle under censorship.
NADINE GORDIMER

Area Censorship Feel Few Identity Literature One Purpose Some Struggle
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
In various and different circumstances certain objects and individuals are going to turn out to be vital. The wager of survival cannot, by its nature, reveal which, in advance of events.
NADINE GORDIMER

Certain Circumstance Go Individual Object Out Turn Various Vital
Peace. The upland serenity of high altitude, the openness of grassland without indigenous bush or trees; the greening, yellowing or silver-browning that prevailed, according to season.
NADINE GORDIMER

Attitude Bush Grasland Gret Indigenous Openness Primacy Serenity Silver Tree Word Yellow
September 2001. A sunny day in New York. Many of us who are writers were at work on the transformation of life into a poem, story, a chapter of a novel, when terror pounced from the sky, and the world made witness to it.
NADINE GORDIMER

Chapter Country Day Life Many One Poem September Story Sunny Thousand Transformation Two Work Writer Year

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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