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In a certain sense a writer is ‘selected’ by his subject – his subject being the consciousness of his own era.

Nadine Gordimer

it’s impossible to conquer all fear and loss by preparation. There are always sources of desolation that aren’t taken into account because no one knows what they will be.
NADINE GORDIMER

Account Always Conquer Desolation Fear Impossible Loss Preparation Source Taken
Sentiment is for those who don’t know what to do next.
NADINE GORDIMER

Do Know Next Sentiment Those To What
Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you’ve made sense of one small area.
NADINE GORDIMER

Area Life Made Make Perhaps Sense Small Writing
Power is something of which I am convinced there is no innocence this side of the womb.
NADINE GORDIMER

Convince Innocence Power Sid Something Womb
Writers themselves don’t analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope.
NADINE GORDIMER

Analysemwould Canyon Cross Down Themselves Tightrope Writer
Can you imagine a writer in England influencing? Absolutely not. And in France? It used to be, but no more-absolutely not. France used to, at least, have writers as diplomats, but not any more.
NADINE GORDIMER

Absolutely Country Imagine Influence More Writer
Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why.
NADINE GORDIMER

Animal Bless Curse Faculty Higher Human Only Regard Self Torture Want Why
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
Nothing fades so quickly as what is unchanged.
NADINE GORDIMER

Fade Nothing Quickly So Unchnage
Newspapers are horror happening to other people.
NADINE GORDIMER

Happen Horror Newspaper Other People
When I was a child, we seemed to be living in a world remote from the rest of the world. But television has made a great difference to all of us.
NADINE GORDIMER

All Child Difference Great Living Made Remote Rest Seem Television World
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
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
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
Success sometimes may be defined as a disaster put on hold. Qualified. Has to be.
NADINE GORDIMER

Define Disaster Hold Qualified Sometimes Success
a writer doesn’t only need the time when he’s actually writing – he or she has got to have time to think and time just to let things work out. Nothing is worse for this than society. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable, effect of other people.
NADINE GORDIMER

Actual Got Need Out She Thing Think Time Work Writer Writing
I couldn’t be sufficiently interested in human beings to be a writer if I had contempt for human beings.
NADINE GORDIMER

Being Contempt Human Interested Sufficiently Writer
If people would forget about utopia! When rationalism destroyed heaven and decided to set it up here on earth, that most terrible of all goals entered human ambition. It was clear there’d be no end to what people would be made to suffer for it.
NADINE GORDIMER

Decide Destroy Eath Forget Heaven People Rationalism Set Utopia Would
The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Ideology demands it. Society exacts it.
NADINE GORDIMER

Act Creative Demand Evidence Exact Ideology Pure Society
Any writer of any worth at all hopes to play only a pocket-torch of light – and rarely, through genius, a sudden flambeau – into the bloody yet beautiful labyrinth of human experience, of being.
NADINE GORDIMER

All Any Ariely Bloody Genius Hope Light Olay Pocket Sudden Through Torch Worth Write Yet
I shall never write an autobiography, I’m much too jealous of my privacy for that.
NADINE GORDIMER

Autobiography Jealous Much never Privacy Shall That
Your whole life you are really writing one book, which is an attempt to grasp the consciousness of your time and place– a single book written from different stages of your ability.
NADINE GORDIMER

Attempt Book Consciousness Life One Place Really Time Whole
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
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
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
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
Very often we support change, and then are swept away by the change. I think that…you just make your own response to your own generation. A response adequate to your time.
NADINE GORDIMER

Away Change Often Support Swept Very

In a certain sense a writer is ‘selected’ by his subject – his subject being the consciousness of his own era.

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In a certain sense a writer is ‘selected’ by his subject – his subject being the consciousness of his own era.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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