The tension between standing apart, and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer.
NADINE GORDIMERThe tension between standing apart, and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer.
NADINE GORDIMERCan 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 GORDIMERFrom Ernest Hemingway’s stories I learned to listen within my stories for what went unsaid by my characters.
NADINE GORDIMERThe facts are always less than what really happened.
NADINE GORDIMERAs writers, we are exploring the mystery, the mystery of existence.
NADINE GORDIMERCan 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 GORDIMERI 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 GORDIMERCensorship may have to do with literature; but literature has nothing whatever to do with censorship.
NADINE GORDIMERIn a certain sense a writer is ‘selected’ by his subject – his subject being the consciousness of his own era.
NADINE GORDIMEROne can’t measure how a mood of confidence comes about.
NADINE GORDIMERA desert is a place without expectation.
NADINE GORDIMERCommunists are the last optimists.
NADINE GORDIMERSentiment is for those who don’t know what to do next.
NADINE GORDIMERI shall never write an autobiography, I’m much too jealous of my privacy for that.
NADINE GORDIMERIf you live in Europe . . . things change . . . but continuity never seems to break. You don’t have to throw the past away.
NADINE GORDIMERWriting is always a voyage of discovery.
NADINE GORDIMER