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.
Nadine GordimerPerhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.
Nadine GordimerWriters themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope.
Nadine GordimerYou can't change a regime on the basis of compassion. There's got to be something harder.
Nadine GordimerThe 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.
Nadine Gordimer