We must live fully in order to secrete the substance of our work, but we have to work alone. - Nadine Gordimer

The farm hasn’t managed that for us, of course, but it has done other things, unexpected, illogical.”

It was my mother who had talked under interrogation. I know why she did. It was to be sure neither her husband nor I would be held responsible.

But a human being, she, she, cannot simply exist; she is a hurricane, every thought bending and crossing its coherence inside her, nothing will let her be, not for a moment. Every emotion, every thought, is invaded by another.