We give kudos to people who have succeeded. We don't care in what they succeeded as long as they succeeded. The worst thing that can happen to anybody in this cultural environment is to fail.

Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, "God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?"

The sad problem is that we see ourselves as being quite terribly small. Instead of spending my time being envious, I need to celebrate your and my different gifts, even if mine are perhaps less spectacular than yours.

I have heard and seen many examples of the cruelty that we are able to visit on one another during my time. . . I have also seen incredible forgiveness and compassion. Yes, each of us has the capacity for great evil. But for every act of evil there are a dozen acts of goodness in our world that go unnoticed. It is only because we believe that people should be good that we despair when they are not. Indeed, if people condoned the evil, we would be justified in losing hope. But most of the world does not. We know that we are meant for better.

I've never doubted that apartheid - because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil - was going to bite the dust eventually.

God wants to set the oppressed free from being oppressed and the oppressors free from oppressing.

Trust is one of the fundamentals of human existence. We need to be able to trust one another. A man who can no longer trust anyone will become sick.