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September 2001. A sunny day in New York. Many of us who are writers were at work on the transformation of life into a poem, story, a chapter of a novel, when terror pounced from the sky, and the world made witness to it.

Nadine Gordimer

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Chapter Country Day Life Many One Poem September Story Sunny Thousand Transformation Two Work Writer Year

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I couldn’t be sufficiently interested in human beings to be a writer if I had contempt for human beings.
NADINE GORDIMER

Being Contempt Human Interested Sufficiently Writer
One can’t measure how a mood of confidence comes about.
NADINE GORDIMER

Come Confidence Measure Mood
Censorship may have to do with literature; but literature has nothing whatever to do with censorship.
NADINE GORDIMER

Censorship Do Literature May Nothing Whatever
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
All worthwhile writing… comes from an individual vision, privately pursued.
NADINE GORDIMER

All Come Individual Privately Purse Vision Worthwhile Writing
The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Ideology demands it. Society exacts it.
NADINE GORDIMER

Act Creative Demand Evidence Exact Ideology Pure Society
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.
NADINE GORDIMER

Decide Destroy Eath Forget Heaven People Rationalism Set Utopia Would
Humans, the only self-regarding animals, blessed or cursed with this torturing higher faculty, have always wanted to know why.
NADINE GORDIMER

Animal Bless Curse Faculty Higher Human Only Regard Self Torture Want Why
I have learned since that sometimes the things we want most are impossible for us. You may long to come home, yet wander forever.
NADINE GORDIMER

Impossible Learn Most Since Sometimes Thing Want
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
it’s impossible to conquer all fear and loss by preparation. There are always sources of desolation that aren’t taken into account because no one knows what they will be.
NADINE GORDIMER

Account Always Conquer Desolation Fear Impossible Loss Preparation Source Taken
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
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
Power is something of which I am convinced there is no innocence this side of the womb.
NADINE GORDIMER

Convince Innocence Power Sid Something Womb
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
The truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is.
NADINE GORDIMER

Always Beauty Hunger Truth
Well, you know, in the fundamentalist milieu of the Afrikaners, there was a sense that they were a chosen people, that they were bringing civilization to the blacks.
NADINE GORDIMER

Bring Chosen Country Fundamental People Sense Well
You can’t change a regime on the basis of compassion. There’s got to be something harder.
NADINE GORDIMER

Basis Change Compassion Got Harder Regime Something
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
Sentiment is for those who don’t know what to do next.
NADINE GORDIMER

Do Know Next Sentiment Those To What
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
I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.
NADINE GORDIMER

Afraid Been Fail Many never Thing
Exile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.
NADINE GORDIMER

Appear Censorship Exile Exist Fragment Genius Index Joyce Longer Mode Place Work
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
Writing is always a voyage of discovery.
NADINE GORDIMER

Always Discovery Oyage Writing
Certainly the people who are close to me are happier. They feel freer.
NADINE GORDIMER

Certainly Close Feel Free Happier People

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