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Quotes from The House Gun — Nadine Gordimer

1923–2014 South Africa

← All quotes by Nadine Gordimer

20 quotes

Everyone wears the uniform of how he sees himself or how he disguises himself.

The House Gun (1997)

The purpose of life is to defend the body against the violence of pain.

The House Gun (1998)

Disgust, a disintegration of everything.

The House Gun (1998)

What is shameful cannot be shared. What is shameful, separates.

The House Gun (1997)

Two creatures caught in the headlights of catastrophe. Nothing between Duncan and the judge, passing sentence, but Motsamai and his confidence.

The House Gun (1998)

I suddenly picked up the gun on the table. And then he was quiet.

The House Gun (1998)

Discovery is not an end. Only a new mystery.

The House Gun (1998)

Had not been able to tell them anything that was leading him towards that Friday night when something terrible happened to him.

The House Gun (1998)

It is not in his nature. Never. I swear on my own life.

The House Gun (1998)

...cannot distinguish which Duncan is being described in truth.

The House Gun (1998)

Bring death and life together.

The House Gun (1998)

She would have drowned herself long ago if she had not met me. She doesn’t do that because, perhaps, I am more dreadful.

The House Gun (1998)

Oh dear, I’m sorry, Bra[brother] and Duncan remembers that “it was exactly the manner, the words, with which the man had announced the end of the months they had lived as lovers."

The House Gun (1998)

That kind of act isn’t in the range of emotional control in which their son’s character was formed, or the contemporary ethic that men don’t own women. Therefore the act could not have been committed.

The House Gun (1998)

Whatever happens to him, whatever he has done … he can come to us. There’s nothing you cannot tell us. We’re always there for you. Always.

The House Gun (1998)

Whether or not harmful intention was premeditated, when the accused picked up the gun … was he in a state of automatism in which … there was total loss of control?

The House Gun (1998)

...in whom self-control has been strongly established since childhood”, and that the evening of the murder was no exception.

The House Gun (1998)

Duncan found her and took her to hospital. He brought her back to life. Literally. She owes her life to Duncan; or she blames him.

The House Gun (1998)

...a swarthy man (Italian or jew?) with a scarred grin, and eyes, one dark-brilliant, one blurred blind, from whom radiant vitality comes impudently since he is gesticulating with a stump in place of one arm.

The House Gun (1998)

I have the feeling you’re in some way suspicious of me. You’re trying to … get me to explain, because I’m his mother. I ought to know, I should know why. And I’m his mother. I ought to know!

The House Gun (1998)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Nadine Gordimer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.