Nadine Gordimer, 1923-2014

She was a prickly, complicated woman whose best self could be found in her pages. She said: “The tension between standing apart and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer. That is where we begin.” She also said: “I cannot live with someone who cannot live without me.” The older I get, the more I recognize such thorniness as essential to a woman writer’s survival.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy