“For our Lord suffered. And I come to believe that he suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For he knew that there is no life without suffering.”

When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.

Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing.

I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.

And were your back as broad as heaven, and your purse full of gold, and did your compassion reach from here to hell itself, there is nothing you can do.

In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest, there is a leaf that falls.

Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.

It is my belief that the only power which can resist the power of fear is the power of love.

Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation.

Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools

For who can stop the heart from breaking?

because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie.

The tragedy is that things are not mended again.

I envision someday a great, peaceful South Africa in which the world will take pride, a nation in which each of many different groups will be making its own creative contribution.

When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, Where are your wounds? and if I say I haven’t any, he will say, Was there nothing to fight for?

Then some unknown rebellion brewed in you, doing harm to you, though how I do not understand.

I have never thought that a Christian would be free of suffering, umfundisi.

But all of these knew very well what they did not want, and what they did not want was the current coin, the well-worn usage.

Nothing could have prepared me for the realization that I was a mother … when I knew I was still in a state of uncreation myself.

And I knew that the roots of imagery were the senses – and that if my readers could feel.

I always left her presence with the sense that she truly knew what she was talking about but that she never felt the need to browbeat you with it,

I just knew how to smile.

I knew I was going to do something great.

I knew I wasn’t going to die 20 miles from where I was born, no 20 miles from where I lived.

I first knew of the existence of this aircraft only early in ‘42 – even in my position.