Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way so you won't get run over.

The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us.

People in the United States still have a 'Tarzan' movie view of Africa. That's because in the movies all you see are jungles and animals . . . We [too] watch television and listen to the radio and go to dances and fall in love.

I look at a stream and I see myself: a native South African, flowing irresistibly over hard obstacles until they become smooth and, one day, disappear - flowing from an origin that has been forgotten toward an end that will never be.

my thoughts are like quick little fish that swim out of my grasp.

Everybody now admits that apartheid was wrong, and all I did was tell the people who wanted to know where I come from how we lived in South Africa. I just told the world the truth. And if my truth then becomes political, I can't do anything about that.

I have to go and say farewell to all the countries that I have been to, if I can. I am 73 now, it is taxing on me.