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The tension between standing apart, and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer.

Nadine Gordimer

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 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
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
Responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of Creativity.
NADINE GORDIMER

Await Creativity Outside Responsibility
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
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
Nothing fades so quickly as what is unchanged.
NADINE GORDIMER

Fade Nothing Quickly So Unchnage
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
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
Keenness of hearing revives when one is alone.
NADINE GORDIMER

Alone Hear Keenness One Review
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
Communists are the last optimists.
NADINE GORDIMER

Communist Lat Optimist
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
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
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
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 tension between standing apart, and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer.

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The tension between standing apart, and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer.

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Popular Authors

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