It's easier for the former masters to put aside the masks that hid their humanity than for the former slaves to recognise the faces underneath. Or to trust that this is not a new mask these are wearing.

Fiction is a way of exploring possibilities present but undreamt of in the living of a single life.

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.

The function of a writer is to make sense of life. It is such a mystery, it changes all the time, like the light.

A desert is a place without expectation.

a writer doesn't only need the time when he's actually writing - he or she has got to have time to think and time just to let things work out. Nothing is worse for this than society. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable, effect of other people.

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