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
country thinking citizens
I don't think I am a citizen of the world; I am very much a citizen of my own country. But my own country is closely related to other parts of the world and influenced by what happens there.
thinking people joy
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.
writing character thinking
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 world dry
I don't understand writers who feel they shouldn't have to do any of the ordinary things of life, because I think that this is necessary: one has to keep in touch with that... The ordinary action of taking a dress down to the dry cleaner's or spraying some plants infected with greenfly is a very sane and good thing to do. It brings one back, so to speak. It also brings the world back.
writing thinking work-out
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.
betrayal writing thinking
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.
according africa emotion hemingway love needs others reality relation state
Ernest Hemingway was in love with Africa and as with others in such a state of emotion ... he constructed for himself, according to his needs and desires, something that had little relation to the reality of the continent,
africa colleague nobel prize south wonderful
He's a colleague and a friend, and it's also a wonderful thing that the Nobel Prize has come to South Africa again,
spoken written
Too much will be speculated about him, too much spoken about him, too much written about him,
beauty truth
Truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.
alter measure passing time
Time is change; we measure its passing by how much things alter
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.
next bleach bonsai
Sentiment is for those who don't know what to do next.
past europe things-change
If you live in Europe . . . things change . . . but continuity never seems to break. You don't have to throw the past away.