“I’m a candle flame that sways in currents of air you can’t see. You need to be the one who steadies me to burn.”

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.

The gap between the committed and the indifferent is a Sahara whose faint trails, followed by the mind’s eye only, fade out in sand.

I cannot live with someone who can’t live without me.

Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.

Written words still have the amazing power to bring out the best and worst of human nature

Sincerity is never having an idea of oneself.

Writing is making sense of life.

Literature is one of the few areas left where black and white feel some identity of purpose; we all struggle under censorship.

Perhaps the best way to write is to do so as if one were already dead, afraid of no one’s reactions, answerable to no one’s views.

Responsibility is what awaits outside the Eden of Creativity.

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 truly living human being cannot remain neutral.

Very often we support change, and then are swept away by the change. I think that…you just make your own response to your own generation. A response adequate to your time.

Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life.

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

Sentiment is for those who don’t know what to do next.

A candle cannot burn without fire as people cannot live without a religion.

Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.

A million candles have burned themselves out. Still I read on.

A thousand candles can be lighted from the flame of one candle.

Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.

There isn’t enough darkness in all the world to snuff out the light of one little candle.

We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles.