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 GORDIMERFiction is a way of exploring possibilities present but undreamt of in the living of a single life.
More Nadine Gordimer Quotes
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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.
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Censorship may have to do with literature; but literature has nothing whatever to do with censorship.
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The function of a writer is to make sense of life. It is such a mystery, it changes all the time, like the light.
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One can’t measure how a mood of confidence comes about.
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There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.
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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.
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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.
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Peace. The upland serenity of high altitude, the openness of grassland without indigenous bush or trees; the greening, yellowing or silver-browning that prevailed, according to season.
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All worthwhile writing… comes from an individual vision, privately pursued.
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The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Ideology demands it. Society exacts it.
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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.
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It’s absolutely fatal to your writing to think about how your work will be received. It’s a betrayal of whatever talent you have.
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Everyone ends up moving alone towards the self
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If I dreamt this, while walking, walking in the London streets, the subconscious of each and every other life, past and present, brushing me in passing, what makes it real? Writing it down.
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If you live in Europe . . . things change . . . but continuity never seems to break. You don’t have to throw the past away.
NADINE GORDIMER