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Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer Quotes

Writer

Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer renowned for her profound social commentary and literary achievements. Her works often delve into issues of apartheid, class differences, and gender, winning numerous literary awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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All Writing Ifs People South Africa Humans Knows South Thinking Made Way White World Needs Would Be Children Country Feels Happens Literature Make Sense

Famous Nadine Gordimer Quotes

“The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he is answerable.”

Writing Realizing Loses Creative Pure Evidence Sociology Eden Sociological

Author:Nadine Gordimer

“Perhaps there is no other way of reaching some understanding of being than through art? Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope. To say this is not to mystify the process of writing but to make an image out of the intense inner concentration the writer must have to cross the chasms of the aleatory and make them the word's own, as an explorer plants a flag.”

Way Writing Looks Art Would Be Process Understanding Crosses Plant Intense Reaching Concentration Flags Crossings Explorers Canyons Chasms

Book:Living in Hope and History

Source: Living in Hope and History

“I shall never write an autobiography, I'm much too jealous of my privacy for that.”

Writing Privacy Jealous Autobiography

Book:Writing and Being

Source: Writing and Being

“Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life.”

Way Writing Fall South Surface South Africa

Book:Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1950-2008

Source: Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1950-2008

“Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.”

Writing Made Whole Areas Whole Life Make Sense

Book:Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

Source: Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

“what a writer does is to try to make sense of life. I think that's what writing is, I think that's what painting is. It's seeking that thread of order and logic in the disorder, and the incredible waste and marvelous profligate character of life. What all artists are trying to do is to make sense of life.”

Thinking Writing Trying Doe Character Artist Order Painting Waste Logic Incredibles Seeking Make Sense Disorder Thread Marvelous

Book:Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

Source: Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

“in writing, sex doesn't matter; it's the writing that matters.”

Writing Matter Sex

Book:Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

Source: Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

“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.”

Needs Writing Made Including Obligation Instance These Days Performers

Author:Nadine Gordimer

“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.”

People Ifs Thinking Needs Writing Effects Work Out Enjoyable Time To Think Things Work Out

Book:Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

Source: Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

“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.”

Knows Needs Should Writing Believe Kind Care Remember I Believe Subjects Involved Solitude Standing Tension Alienation Working Life Standing Apart

Book:Selected Stories

Source: Selected Stories

“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.”

Thinking Writing Talent Betrayal

Author:Nadine Gordimer

“Writing is always a voyage of discovery.”

Writing Discovery Voyages Voyages Of Discovery

Author:Nadine Gordimer

“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.”

Writing Political Purpose Courses Force Mystery Mystery Of Life Purpose Of Writing

Author:Nadine Gordimer

“Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.”

Writing Fiction Truthful Factual

Book:Living in Hope and History

Source: Living in Hope and History

“The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It's quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.”

Writing Loses Solitude Madness Disappear Frightening

Book:Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

Source: Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

“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.”

Writing Book Different Whole Ability Consciousness Written Stage Whole Life

Author:Nadine Gordimer

“If I dreamt this, while walking, walking in the London streets, the subconscious of each and every other life, past and present, brushing me in passing, what makes it real? Writing it down.”

Ifs Writing Real Past Streets Walking London Passing Passings Subconscious Past And Present Brushing

Book:Loot

Source: Loot

“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.”

“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.”

Ifs Way Writing Views Reactions Best Way

Author:Nadine Gordimer

“Writing is making sense of life.”

Writing Make Sense

Book:Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

Source: Conversations with Nadine Gordimer

“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.”

World Writing Made Stories Literature History Novel Sky New York Transformation Terror Terrorism Witness New York City Chapters September Sunny September 11 Sunny Day September 11 2001

Author:Nadine Gordimer

“All worthwhile writing... comes from an individual vision, privately pursued.”

Writing Individual Vision Worthwhile Pursued

Author:Nadine Gordimer

“Any writer of any worth at all hopes to play only a pocket-torch of light - and rarely, through genius, a sudden flambeau - into the bloody yet beautiful labyrinth of human experience, of being.”

Writing Humans Play Light Beautiful Genius Pockets Bloody Human Experience Torches Labyrinth

Book:Living in Hope and History

Source: Living in Hope and History

About the Author

Born: November 20, 1923
Died: July 13, 2014
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 119

Related Topics

Writing Ifs People South Africa Humans Knows South Thinking Made Way White World Needs Would Be Children Country Feels Happens Literature Make Sense

Popular Topics

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Books & Sources

Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1950-2008Related source material

Conversations with Nadine GordimerRelated source material

Burger's DaughterRelated source material

Living in Hope and HistoryRelated source material

Selected StoriesRelated source material

Get a LifeRelated source material

The Quotable Gordimer; or, The Wit and Wisdom of Nadine GordimerRelated source material

The ConservationistRelated source material

The House GunRelated source material

July's PeopleRelated source material

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