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You can’t change a regime on the basis of compassion. There’s got to be something harder.

Nadine Gordimer

Certainly the people who are close to me are happier. They feel freer.
NADINE GORDIMER

Certainly Close Feel Free Happier People
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
Your whole life you are really writing one book, which is an attempt to grasp the consciousness of your time and place– a single book written from different stages of your ability.
NADINE GORDIMER

Attempt Book Consciousness Life One Place Really Time Whole
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
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
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
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
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
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
Literature is one of the few areas left where black and white feel some identity of purpose; we all struggle under censorship.
NADINE GORDIMER

Area Censorship Feel Few Identity Literature One Purpose Some Struggle
Success sometimes may be defined as a disaster put on hold. Qualified. Has to be.
NADINE GORDIMER

Define Disaster Hold Qualified Sometimes Success
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
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
Keenness of hearing revives when one is alone.
NADINE GORDIMER

Alone Hear Keenness One Review
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

You can’t change a regime on the basis of compassion. There’s got to be something harder.

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You can’t change a regime on the basis of compassion. There’s got to be something harder.

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