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Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life.

Nadine Gordimer

I’m forty-nine but I could be twenty-five except for my face and my legs.
NADINE GORDIMER

Expect Face Five Forty Leg Nine Twenty
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
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.
NADINE GORDIMER

Absolutely Betray Have Recieve Talent Think Work Write
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
Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.
NADINE GORDIMER

Factual Fiction Nothing Say Truthful Write
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.
NADINE GORDIMER

Attitude Bush Grasland Gret Indigenous Openness Primacy Serenity Silver Tree Word Yellow
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
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
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
Art defies defeat by its very existence, representing the celebration of life, in spite of all attempts to degrade and destroy it.
NADINE GORDIMER

All Attempt Celebration Defeat Define Degrade Destroy Existence Life Representing Spite
Nothing fades so quickly as what is unchanged.
NADINE GORDIMER

Fade Nothing Quickly So Unchnage
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 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
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
Newspapers are horror happening to other people.
NADINE GORDIMER

Happen Horror Newspaper Other People
I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.
NADINE GORDIMER

Afraid Been Fail Many never Thing

Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life.

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Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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