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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

Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.
NADINE GORDIMER

Continuing Convenience Definition Gap Menn Narrow Perhaps Progress Women
Fiction is a way of exploring possibilities present but undreamt of in the living of a single life.
NADINE GORDIMER

But Explore Fiction Life Live Possibility Present Single Undreamt Way
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 truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is.
NADINE GORDIMER

Always Beauty Hunger Truth
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
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
Books dont need batteries
NADINE GORDIMER

Battery Book Need
The function of a writer is to make sense of life. It is such a mystery, it changes all the time, like the light.
NADINE GORDIMER

Change Function Life Light Make Mystery Sense Such Time Writer
In a certain sense a writer is ‘selected’ by his subject – his subject being the consciousness of his own era.
NADINE GORDIMER

Being Certain Consciousness Era Own Select Sense Subject Writer
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
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
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
A child understands fear, and the hurt and hate it brings.
NADINE GORDIMER

Bring Child Fear Hate Hurt Understand
A desert is a place without expectation.
NADINE GORDIMER

Desert Expectation Place Without
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 country of the tourist pamphlet always is another country, an embarrassing abstraction of the desirable that, thank God, does not exist on this planet, where there are always ants and bad smells and empty Coca-Cola bottles to keep the grubby finger-print of reality upon the beautiful.
NADINE GORDIMER

Abstraction Always Another Country Desirable Embarrassing Exist God Pamphlet Thank Tourist

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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