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 GordimerExile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.
Nadine GordimerThe creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Ideology demands it. Society exacts it.
Nadine GordimerI 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.
Nadine GordimerI 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.
Nadine Gordimer