Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimerwas a South African writer, political activist and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity"...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth20 November 1923
democracy function greatest judge law law-and-lawyers laws power proof reserve respect rule unjust vigilance watch
In a democracy -- even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-Tlitist one -- the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law.
fades
Nothing fades so quickly as what is unchanged.
aging passages
Time is change; we measure its passage by how much things alter.
writing made whole-life
Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.
writing vision individual
All worthwhile writing... comes from an individual vision, privately pursued.
writing political purpose
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 make-sense
Writing is making sense of life.
writing solitude madness
The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It's quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.
expectations desert
A desert is a place without expectation.
brain mind freedom-of-speech
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.
truly-living humans human-beings
A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.
writing eden creative
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.
human-nature worst humans
Written words still have the amazing power to bring out the best and worst of human nature
writing fiction truthful
Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.