About the joys and the courage, I really don't know what other people think. I just know that I've never left Africa. I've lived there all my life. And one of the wonderful things, in spite of all the terrible things that happen in South Africa, is the way people continue to keep their dignity.

Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.

The facts are always less than what really happened.

Once you have some sort of reputation in the outside world, they will try to woo you. They will say, "Won't you come and be on a talk program about books? That's not political." Then they can say to the outside world, "See how free it is, she appears on television. See how free it is." So I refused to have anything of mine read or dramatized on South African television.

The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It's quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.

Disaster is private, in its way, as love is.

Time is change; we measure its passage by how much things alter.