I shall never write an autobiography, I'm much too jealous of my privacy for that. Nadine Gordimer More Quotes by Nadine Gordimer More Quotes From Nadine Gordimer 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 beautifulcountrytravel You can't be afraid to do good in case evil results. Nadine Gordimer good-and-evilresultsevil If you live in Europe . . . things change . . . but continuity never seems to break. You don't have to throw the past away. Nadine Gordimer things-changeeuropepast in writing, sex doesn't matter; it's the writing that matters. Nadine Gordimer matterwritingsex when it comes to their essential faculty as writers, all writers are androgynous beings. Nadine Gordimer androgynousfacultyessentials And this indifference is still very much present in modern South Africa. Just listen to Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer - a representative of the British elite in this country: Afrikaner women are lower than rats, closer related to plants, just fit enough to be raped in an act of genus preservation. Nadine Gordimer winnerratscountry I believe - I know (there are not many things I should care to dogmatize about, on the subject of writing) that writers need solitude, and seek alienation of a kind every day of their working lives. (And remember, they are not even aware when and when not they are working.) ... The tension between standing apart and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer. Nadine Gordimer solitudewritingbelieve You can't change a regime on the basis of compassion. There's got to be something harder. Nadine Gordimer harderregimescompassion The process of writing fiction is totally unconscious. It comes from what you are learning, as you live, from within. For me, all writing is a process of discovery. We are looking for the meaning of life. No matter where you are, there are conflicts and dramas everywhere. It is the process of what it means to be a human being; how you react and are reacted upon, these inward and outer pressures. If you are writing with a direct cause in mind, you are writing propaganda. It's fatal for a fiction writer. Nadine Gordimer writingdramamean 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 viewswritingway Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope. Nadine Gordimer canyonswould-belooks 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 madewritingneeds 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 preparationtakenloss Once you have some sort of reputation in the outside world, they will try to woo you. They will say, "Won't you come and be on a talk program about books? That's not political." Then they can say to the outside world, "See how free it is, she appears on television. See how free it is." So I refused to have anything of mine read or dramatized on South African television. Nadine Gordimer politicaltryingbook When I was a child, we seemed to be living in a world remote from the rest of the world. But television has made a great difference to all of us. If something happens where I live, you see it tomorrow or perhaps even at the same time it is happening there. It's not "one world" in the sense that conflicts are resolved in the world. But we are more one world in that we know what is going on and are psychologically influenced by what goes on around us. Nadine Gordimer differencesgoes-onchildren 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 diplomatsfranceamerica As writers, we are exploring the mystery, the mystery of existence. Nadine Gordimer exploringexistencemystery One can't measure how a mood of confidence comes about. Nadine Gordimer mood 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 partybelievepeople 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 joypeoplethinking
