black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Nadine Gordimer

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
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
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
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
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 Communist Party is very popular in South Africa, especially among the young people. Never having had a chance to travel, and having suffered so much under capitalism, they still can’t believe that the Russian people themselves have rejected it.
NADINE GORDIMER

Among Communist Country Especially Party People Popular Young
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
Newspapers are horror happening to other people.
NADINE GORDIMER

Happen Horror Newspaper Other People
Certainly the people who are close to me are happier. They feel freer.
NADINE GORDIMER

Certainly Close Feel Free Happier People
in writing, sex doesn’t matter; it’s the writing that matters.
NADINE GORDIMER

Matter Sex 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
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
Time is change; we measure its passage by how much things alter.
NADINE GORDIMER

After Change Measure Much Passage Thing Time
In a certain sense a writer is ‘selected’ by his subject – his subject being the consciousness of his own era.
NADINE GORDIMER

Being Certain Consciousness Era Own Select Sense Subject Writer
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
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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Nadine Gordimer Quotes