Poetry cannot block a bullet or still a sjambok, but it can bear witness to brutality-thereby cultivating a flower in a graveyard.

It always seems impossible until its done.

The first election in which all South Africans took part was in April, 1994. There were long queues [lines] of employers and employees, black and white. In the sense of Africans, Coloreds and Indians - when I talk about blacks, I mean those three. Blacks and whites mingled to vote without any hitches. Many people would have expected a great deal of tension, clashes and violence, but it did not occur.

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.

The collapse of good conscience and the absence of accountability and public scrutiny have led to crimes against humanity and violations of international law.

It is important to not be hostile to what a greater part of society has embraced, whether as Christians, Hindus or Muslims. It is important to respect that because whether you believe or not in the existence of a superior being, humanity does believe in that.

I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.