It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.

If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.

What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.

People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.

Travellers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves

For people who are coming out of an oral tradition, it is very exciting to get into reading and writing and it is quite interesting how frequently people want to write their own story. Sometimes it is straight history - this is how we came about, how our town was created, a lot of that kind of effort, as soon as literacy came. The first thing you wanted to do was to put something down about who you are or how you are related to you neighbors. Then the next stage would be the stories, the cultural part of the story: this is the kind of world our ancestors made or aspired to.

There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.