A desert is a place without expectation.
The primacy of the word, basis of the human psyche, that has in our age been used for mind-bending persuasion and brain-washing pulp, disgraced by Gobbles and debased by advertising copy, remains a force for freedom that flies out between all bars.
A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.
I couldn’t be sufficiently interested in human beings to be a writer if I had contempt for human beings.
Written words still have the amazing power to bring out the best and worst of human nature.
Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.
There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.
The facts are always less than what really happened.
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.
The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he is answerable.
Power is something of which I am convinced there is no innocence this side of the womb.
It was a miracle; it was all a miracle: and one ought to have known, from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror.
Certainly the people who are close to me are happier. They feel freer.
Writing is always a voyage of discovery.
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.
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.
The tension between standing apart, and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer.
Censorship may have to do with literature; but literature has nothing whatever to do with censorship.
Mostly I’m interviewed by white people, and identified with white society.
Sentiment is for those who don’t know what to do next.