Nadine Gordimer Quotes

I think I've always had that struggle my whole life, of feeling a little bit more gender-neutral, feeling more comfortable as a creative person when I'm dressed like a boy, when I'm dressed more masculine.

I like that I have a boyish figure, because I love wearing men's suits.

As to sex, the original pleasure, I cannot recommend too highly the advantages of androgyny.

There are jobs that can be done equally well by men or by women and that finally you can't see a difference. But from the moment that you involve yourself fully in writing a novel, for example, or an essay, then you are involved as a woman, in the same way that you can't deny your nationality - you are French, you are a man, you are a woman... all this passes into the writing.

I think it is absurd to give such tremendous importance to the distinctions between men and women. When I meet someone I regard that person as a human being. I do not say "This is a man; this is a woman."

Every person has a range. In fiction, you get to be it all. I’m as much the men in my book as I am the women. I write how I write and there is no mission to stake a claim.

I think that the boy-woman is a very strong image and a lot of fascinating women are like that: Gala [Dalí].

To you I am neither man nor woman. I come before you as an author only.

If I'm androgynous, I'd say I lean toward macho-androgynous.

I don't think about being male or female, I just behave naturally. I think in terms of excellence in science, not gender.

I should have asked for credit - but he has no idea how amazing it is that a character that was written as a boy can be equally written for a girl. It's like you said, just write a character as if it were a man, and then turn it and make it into a woman. It's like, we're human beings, after all.

I'm excited about representing my gender, but at the same time it doesn't matter. I wouldn't say my gender has been a disadvantage.

Androgyny suggests a spirit of reconciliation between the sexes.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of a man.

We are nearly all composed of such a complex mixture of human qualities that in each one of us reside both masculine and feminine principles: what man is without any female attribute and what woman never demonstrates any masculine characteristics?

Oversoul Seven grimaced at Cyprus and began the examination. 'Let's see,' he said, 'In Earth terms, using an analogy, I'm a man on Wednesday and Friday, a woman on Sunday and Thursday, and have the rest of the time off for independent study.

An androgynous mind was not a male mind. It was a mind attuned to the full range of human experience, including the invisible lives of women.

I am very gender-fluid and feel more like I wake up every day sort of gender neutral.

I don’t love just men. I love people. It’s not about a gender. It’s just about the spirit that exudes from that other person you’re with.

It would be ridiculous to talk of male and female atmospheres, male and female springs or rains, male and female sunshine....How much more ridiculous is it in relation to mind, to soul, to thought, where there is as undeniably no such thing as sex.

As a concept [androgyny] raise[s] anxiety levels by conjuring up a conformist, unisex vision, the very opposite of the individuality and uniqueness that feminism actually has in mind.

I don't care whether they're men or women, that's bullshit. A good writer can get into any gender, can get into any mouth. When I write I may be a Brando creep, or a girl laying on the floor, or a Japanese tourist, or a slob like Richard Speck. You have to be a chameleon when you're writing.

Effeminate men intrigue me more than anything in the world. I see them as my alter egos. I feel very drawn to them. I think like a guy, but I'm feminine. So I relate to feminine men.

Nowadays everybody's a feminist - male, female, trans. Gender's so passé they don't even care anymore. They know what equal rights are, they know what it's about, and everybody is standing toe-to-toe strong about it and really fighting.

It's hard to tell whether the ship or airplane - they're all the same, I'm convinced - is male or female; it may shift back and forth.