123 quotes
...in whom self-control has been strongly established since childhood”, and that the evening of the murder was no exception.
The House Gun (1998)
This idea that revolutionaries are martyrs who go around looking gloomy and noble, this is a romantic idea for people who've never met anybody who's gone through the experiences.
Interview with Progressive Magazine (1992)
Death is really the mystery of life, isn’t it? If you ask, “What happens when we die? Why do we die?” you are asking, “Why do we live?”
Interview with The Paris Review (1979)
You know history better than I do, you've been teaching all your life. Without real opposition you get dictators down the line. Idi, Amin, Mugabe. No democracy without opposition.
No Time Like The Present (2012)
There are many proven explanations for natural phenomena now; and there are new questions of being arising out of some of the answers. For this reason, the genre of myth has never been entirely abandoned, although we are inclined to think of it as archaic.
Writing and Being (1991)
propos[ed] a future South Africa, not only on terms of equality of races but of sexes, too”
My Son's Story (1990)
a moment of high excitement shared through the roof of the cab
The Moment Before the Gun Went Off (1988)
What had Aila done to assuage his anguish at Baby's attempt to end her life before it had begun? Nothing. Silence. Silence upon the other silence. Comfort and understanding he had had to find elsewhere.
My Son's Story (1990)
The writer must take the right to explore, warts and all, both the enemy and the beloved comrade in arms, since only a try for the truth makes sense of being, only a try for the truth edges towards justice just ahead of Yeats's beast slouching to be born.
Writing and Being (1991)
There can be no global culture while there are inhabitants deprived of the ability to read, to have access to the powers of the imagination released through the written word, through literature; deprived of the intellectual and spiritual bounty of libraries.
A Letter to Future Generations (1999)
Perhaps it is the positive knowledge that humans now possess the means to destroy their whole planet, the fear that they have in this way themselves become the gods, dreadfully charged with their own continued existence, that has made comic-book and movie myth escapist.
Writing and Being (1991)
Duncan found her and took her to hospital. He brought her back to life. Literally. She owes her life to Duncan; or she blames him.
The House Gun (1998)
It was my mother who had talked under interrogation. I know why she did. It was to be sure neither her husband nor I would be held responsible.
My Son's Story (1990)
I was evidence of the theory that books are made out of other books . . . But I did not remain so for long, nor do I believe any potential writer could.
Writing and Being (1991)
I have said that nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction. The life, the opinions, are not the work, for it is in the tension between standing apart and being involved that the imagination transforms both.
Writing and Being (1991)
If somebody is partly frivolous or superficial, has moments of cruelty or self-doubt, I don’t write them off, because I think that absolutely everybody has what are known as human failings.
Interview with The Paris Review (1979)
Odd in-between period which sometimes inserts itself into historical time when not only the later historians but the actors and witnesses, the living themselves, become aware of an interval in time which is altogether determined by things that are no longer and by things that are not yet. In history, these intervals have shown more than once that they may contain the moment of truth.
My Son's Story (1990)
In countries like Czechoslovakia, like South Africa, like Argentina, guilt by association is a fact and therefore the friendships you form can be a political act. This circumstance, way of life, is very complex. People think that a political act is signing a declaration or planting a bomb, but there are all kinds of political acts in countries where there is a great political struggle going on.
...a swarthy man (Italian or jew?) with a scarred grin, and eyes, one dark-brilliant, one blurred blind, from whom radiant vitality comes impudently since he is gesticulating with a stump in place of one arm.
The House Gun (1998)
Progress is the business of making life more safe and more enjoyable . . . fuller, generally.
Interview with The Paris Review (1979)