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

Nadine Gordimer

All worthwhile writing… comes from an individual vision, privately pursued.
NADINE GORDIMER

All Come Individual Privately Purse Vision Worthwhile Writing
The truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is.
NADINE GORDIMER

Always Beauty Hunger Truth
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
Rebirth. I mean by this simply what happens when the child begins to realise the fact that the black does not enter through the white’s front door is not in the same category as the fact that the dead will never come back.
NADINE GORDIMER

Back Begin Child Enter Fact Front Happen Realise Rebirth Simply Thought White
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
The facts are always less than what really happened.
NADINE GORDIMER

Always Fact Happen Less Really What
A child understands fear, and the hurt and hate it brings.
NADINE GORDIMER

Bring Child Fear Hate Hurt Understand
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
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 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
In a country like South Africa, writers have nuisance value, because those of us who have become known overseas have certainly helped to inform people about what life is like there.
NADINE GORDIMER

Become Certainty Country Help Known Nuisance Overseas South Value 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
Disaster is private, in its way, as love is.
NADINE GORDIMER

Disaster Private Way Love
Writing is making sense of life.
NADINE GORDIMER

Life Make Sense Writing
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
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

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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