There are very few institutions that give prizes to people who may not have got to be number one, but are possibly better at coaxing the best out of others.

I say somewhat facetiously, "I'm so glad I'm not God." Can you imagine being God and looking at Syria and saying: "These are my children. Look at what they're doing to each other."

Arrogance really comes from insecurity, and in the end our feeling that we are bigger than others is really the flip side of our feeling that we are smaller than others.

There are levels of poverty in South Africa that are totally unacceptable.

When God grabs you by the scruff of the neck then although theoretically you have a freedom to say 'no', in another sense, actually, you can't say no because it's like Jeremiah. 'God, you have cheated me. You called me to be a prophet against the people that I love, and all that I proclaim is words of doom and judgement.' And yet if I say "I will shut up", I can't.

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.

We mustn't romanticize suffering. It can turn people bitter and hard, although it does seem to have been almost indispensable in making people into the kind of leaders that we admire.