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The facts are always less than what really happened.

Nadine Gordimer

Perhaps the best way to write is to do so as if one were already dead, afraid of no one’s reactions, answerable to no one’s views.
NADINE GORDIMER

Afraid Already Answerable Best Dead One Perhaps Reaction View Way Write
What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there’s another force from inside battling to make us something else.
NADINE GORDIMER

Course Explain Include Life Mystery Personally Purpose Really Write
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
Music has no limits of a life-span.
NADINE GORDIMER

Life Limit Music No Span
Censorship may have to do with literature; but literature has nothing whatever to do with censorship.
NADINE GORDIMER

Censorship Do Literature May Nothing Whatever
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
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
One can’t measure how a mood of confidence comes about.
NADINE GORDIMER

Come Confidence Measure Mood
I shall never write an autobiography, I’m much too jealous of my privacy for that.
NADINE GORDIMER

Autobiography Jealous Much never Privacy Shall That
People give one another things that can’t be gift wrapped.
NADINE GORDIMER

Another Gift Give One People Thing Wrap
in writing, sex doesn’t matter; it’s the writing that matters.
NADINE GORDIMER

Matter Sex Writing
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
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 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
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
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

The facts are always less than what really happened.

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The facts are always less than what really happened.

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