N Gordimer Quotes & Sayings

Time is change; we measure its passing by how much things alter. — Nadine Gordimer

Success sometimes may be defined as a disaster put on hold. Qualified. Has to be. — Nadine Gordimer

The caged eagle become a metaphor for all forms of isolation, the ultimate in imprisonment. A zoo is prison. — Nadine Gordimer

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

A truly living human being cannot remain neutral. — Nadine Gordimer

If you live in Europe ... things change ... but continuity never seems to break. You don't have to throw the past away. — Nadine Gordimer

Peace. The upland serenity of high altitude, the openness of grassland without indigenous bush or trees; the greening, yellowing or silver-browning that prevailed, according to season. — Nadine Gordimer

One can't measure how a mood of confidence comes about. — Nadine Gordimer

I'll go back. I'll go back through that Kruger Park. After the war, if there are no bandits any more, our mother may be waiting for us. And maybe when we left our grandfather, he was only left behind, he found his way somehow, slowly, through the Kruger Park, and he'll be there. They'll be home, and I'll remember them. — Nadine Gordimer

If you ask, 'What happens when we die? Why do we die?' you are asking, 'Why do we live? — Nadine Gordimer

Time is change; we measure its passage by how much things alter. — Nadine Gordimer

At four in the afternoon the old moon bleeds radiance into the grey sky. — Nadine Gordimer

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

Her work sought to challenge all of us critically to reflect on the things we find comfort in believing without question. — Thabo Mbeki

I shall never write an autobiography, I'm much too jealous of my privacy for that. — Nadine Gordimer

Writing is making sense of life. — Nadine Gordimer

Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction. — Nadine Gordimer

A desert is a place without expectation. — Nadine Gordimer

You don't have to be a believer in a lot of superstition and nonsense - there's a difference between thinking to oneself and thinking as a form of conversation, even if there are no answers. — Nadine Gordimer

Afrikaner women are lower than rats, closer related to plants, just fit enough to be raped in an act of genus preservation. — Nadine Gordimer

you like to have some cup of tea?-July bent at the doorway and began that day for them as his kind has always done for their kind. — Nadine Gordimer

Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life. — Nadine Gordimer

Responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of Creativity — Nadine Gordimer

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

The creative act is not pure. — Nadine Gordimer

I couldn't be sufficiently interested in human beings to be a writer if I had contempt for human beings. — Nadine Gordimer

In the New Yorker library, I have long been shelved between Nadine Gordimer and Brendan Gill; an eerie little space nestled between high seriousness of purpose and legendary lightness of touch. — Adam Gopnik

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. — 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. — Nadine Gordimer

Keenness of hearing revives when one is alone. — Nadine Gordimer