You know you are really famous the day you discover you have become a comic character!

I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?

It always seems impossible until its done.

Why is it that in this courtroom I face a white magistrate, am confronted by a white prosecutor and escorted into the dock by a white orderly? Can anyone honestly and seriously suggest that in this type of atmosphere the scales of justice are evenly balanced?

Today we are a nation at peace with itself, united in our diversity, not only proclaiming but living out the contention that South Africa belongs to all who live in it. We take our place amongst the nations of the world, confident and proud in being an African country.

[I] read Anne Frank's diary [while imprisoned] on Robben Island and derived much encouragement from it.