“Sincerity is never having an idea of oneself.”

The truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is.

It’s absolutely fatal to your writing to think about how your work will be received. It’s a betrayal of whatever talent you have.

A desert is a place without expectation.

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.

I have learned since that sometimes the things we want most are impossible for us. You may long to come home, yet wander forever.

Nothing fades so quickly as what is unchanged.

The Communist Party is very popular in South Africa, especially among the young people. Never having had a chance to travel, and having suffered so much under capitalism, they still can’t believe that the Russian people themselves have rejected it.

What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there’s another force from inside battling to make us something else.

when it comes to their essential faculty as writers, all writers are androgynous beings.

Disaster is private, in its way, as love is.

It was a miracle; it was all a miracle: and one ought to have known, from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror.

Writers themselves don’t analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope.

I decided that I wanted nothing to do with South African government television while any of my fellow writers were banned and couldn’t speak publicly.

Writing is always a voyage of discovery.

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.

Art defies defeat by its very existence, representing the celebration of life, in spite of all attempts to degrade and destroy it.

Every relationship you have, you’re learning and growing and taking something from that.

I have a strong sense of myself. That gives me a sense of security, you know?

Most of all, having money allows you not to have to spend your energy worrying about not having money.

As for what other people think of me, I don’t care. I don’t care and never have.

My definition of financial freedom is simple: it is the ability to live the lifestyle you desire without having to work or rely on anyone else for money.

The poverty from which I have suffered could be diagnosed as ‘Soho’ poverty. It comes from having the airs and graces of a genius and no talent.

Money is a lubricant. It lets you “slide” through life instead of having to “scrape” by.

I must first have the sense of God’s possession of me before I can have the sense of His presence with me.