A tribute to Nadine Gordimer: Her best quotes

Nadine Gordimer - South African Nobel laureate, one of the world's most powerful voices against racial apartheid, and an inspiration to countless writers - died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Johannesburg on Sunday.  

Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1991 for her 'magnificent epic writing' which had been 'of very great benefit to humanity', Gordimer began writing at an early age and published her first story - Come Again Tomorrow - at the tender age of 15. Addressing themes of exile and alienation throughout her work, she was a staunch supporter and friend of Nelson Mandela, and even edited his famous 'I Am Prepared To Die' speech, which he gave as a defendant during his 1962 trial.

So as the world mourns the loss of a literary giant, we pay tribute to her contribution to the literary landscape and her political and intellectual courage, with a list of the most inspiring and memorable Nadine Gordimer quotes.

Nadine Gordimer: The Best Quotes

'Your whole life you are really writing one book, which is an attempt to grasp the consciousness of your time and place – a single book written from different stages of your ability.'

'Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.'

'The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.'

'I cannot live with someone who can't live without me.'

'I'm a candle flame that sways in currents of air you can't see. You need to be the one who steadies me to burn.'

'I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid'

'Time is change; we measure its passing by how much things alter.'

'Success sometimes may be defined as a disaster put on hold. Qualified. Has to be.'

'Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.'

'There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.'

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