Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that's where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.

Reconciliation is a long process. We don't have the kind of race clashes that we thought would happen. What we have is xenophobia, and it's very distressing. But maybe you ought to be lenient with us. We've been free for just 12 years.

All people would really want peace and all would want to be sure that they would not be taken advantage of.

I wonder whether they have rum and Coke in Heaven? Maybe it's too mundane a pleasure, but I hope so -- as a sundowner. Except, of course, the sun never goes down there. Oh, man, this heaven is going to take some getting used to.

The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.

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

I have struggled against tyranny. I didn't do that in order to substitute another.