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Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why.

Nadine Gordimer

If you live in Europe . . . things change . . . but continuity never seems to break. You don’t have to throw the past away.
NADINE GORDIMER

Away Break Change Continuity Country Live never Past Seem Thing Throw
The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It’s quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.
NADINE GORDIMER

Close Day Disappear Frightening Happiness Madness One Quite Solitude Touch Writing
I have learned since that sometimes the things we want most are impossible for us. You may long to come home, yet wander forever.
NADINE GORDIMER

Impossible Learn Most Since Sometimes Thing Want
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
About the joys and the courage, I really don’t know what other people think. I just know that I’ve never left Africa. I’ve lived there all my life. And one of the wonderful things, in spite of all the terrible things that happen in South Africa, is the way people continue to keep their dignity.
NADINE GORDIMER

Country Courage Joy Know Left never Now Other People Really Think
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
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
Writing is always a voyage of discovery.
NADINE GORDIMER

Always Discovery Oyage Writing
All worthwhile writing… comes from an individual vision, privately pursued.
NADINE GORDIMER

All Come Individual Privately Purse Vision Worthwhile Writing
I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.
NADINE GORDIMER

Afraid Been Fail Many never Thing
in writing, sex doesn’t matter; it’s the writing that matters.
NADINE GORDIMER

Matter Sex Writing
A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.
NADINE GORDIMER

Human Being Living Neutral Remain Truly
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
My answer is: Recognize yourself in others
NADINE GORDIMER

Answer Other Recognize Yourself
I decided that I wanted nothing to do with South African government television while any of my fellow writers were banned and couldn’t speak publicly.
NADINE GORDIMER

Banned Country Decide Fellow Government Nothing Television Want Write
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
Can you imagine writers influencing things in America? 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 Thing Writer
Censorship may have to do with literature; but literature has nothing whatever to do with censorship.
NADINE GORDIMER

Censorship Do Literature May Nothing Whatever
The gap between the committed and the indifferent is a Sahara whose faint trails, followed by the mind’s eye only, fade out in sand.
NADINE GORDIMER

Between Committed Eye Fade Fint Follow Gap Indifferent Mind Only Out Sagara Sand Trail
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
As writers, we are exploring the mystery, the mystery of existence.
NADINE GORDIMER

Existence Explore Myself Mystery Writer

Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why.

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Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why.

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Popular Authors

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