Quotes by South African Authors - Page 35

Constable N stepped away from the car, into the darkness where Darren could not see where his gun was pointing, and fired two rounds into the air. The gunshots cracked the roof of the night sky and echoed back at us. My first thought was that they could be heard all over Toekomsrus; I wondered how many imaginations had in that instant conjured a different story to explain the gunshots; a record of all those stories, I found myself thinking, would probably document every fear this place has of itself and its young men.
Jonny Steinberg
The religious worry about life after death at the expense of life before death.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To lose weight, spend time at the gym. To appear like you’ve lost weight, spend time with people who are bigger than you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
the perhaps rather prosaic truth that law is an imperfect yet indispensable vehicle by which both to conserve and transform society
Raymond Wacks
If you seek happiness through someone else's perspective, you might as well get comfortable in sorrow.
Unarine Ramaru
Christianity is constantly in danger of being hijacked by people who act out in hatred - by people who will not even hear the cries of their victims, let alone own up to their guilt.
Christina Engela
We need to consciously remember that we have an unprecedented responsibility to protect our planet, because without it we have nowhere else to live.
Gugu Mona
When a “runner” runs, they run. But in time the “runner” finds themselves in a no-brain situation. They are faced with the choice of living in pain from the separation from the twin soul, or returning and facing that deep love, working through their fears (often unfounded) of possible rejection and reaching their own personal Eden.
Chimnese Davids
You show your humanity by how you see yourself not as apart from others but from your connection to others.
Desmond Tutu
We would not be ashamed of doing some of the things we do in private, if the number of sane human beings who do them in public were large enough.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The reason most of your staff are asleep and disengaged, is because you have boring, and bully managers, and no REAL Leaders to inspire and unleash potential.
Tony Dovale
Look forward to failure. Fail quickly. If it does not start with Failure it is probably not meant to be
David Sikhosana
Technically, all tattoos are temporary, even permanent ones.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
God will hear your cry even when your voice can't shout out loud unto him. He will see your tears even when can no longer shed any.
Gugu Mona
A model is an actor without a voice.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Life is worthwhile when you walk on a path aligned to your purpose.
Gift Gugu Mona
If you want breakfast in bed, you have to concider sleeping in the kitchen>
Foster "Raul" Mkhabele
When reading a book, you are sold what some writer thought. When reading a newspaper, you are sold what someone did, and, what some advertiser made.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Prayer and fasting is what every Christian needs because prayer empowers you while fasting humbles you to be a better child of God.
Gift Gugu Mona
If you have fallen down, you cannot go further down, so pick yourself up and aim high, you've got nothing to lose.
Unarine Ramaru
Remember that whatsoever you desire, God is the most dependable provider.
Gift Gugu Mona
I thought I was getting away from politics for a while. But I now realise that the vuvuzela is to these World Cup blogs what Julius Malema is to my politics columns: a noisy, but sadly unavoidable irritant. With both Malema and the vuvuzela, their importance is far overstated. Malema: South Africa's Robert Mugabe? I think not. The vuvuzela: an archetypal symbol of 'African culture?' For African civilisation's sake, I seriously hope not.Both are getting far too much airtime than they deserve. Both have thrust themselves on to the world stage through a combination of hot air and raucous bluster. Both amuse and enervate in roughly equal measure. And both are equally harmless in and of themselves — though in Malema's case, it is the political tendency that he represents, and the right-wing interests that lie behind his diatribes that is dangerous. With the vuvu I doubt if there are such nefarious interests behind the scenes; it may upset the delicate ears of the middle classes, both here and at the BBC, but I suspect that South Africa's democracy will not be imperilled by a mass-produced plastic horn.
Richard Calland
Since marriage is for two people, it is difficult to remain in it when one person steps out of it.
Gift Gugu Mona
This is difficult to comprehend when one pauses to consider the character of Christ. Admittedly there have been many false caricatures of this Person, but an unbiased look at His life quickly reveals an individual of enormous compassion and incredible integrity.
W. Phillip Keller
Technically, you cannot really own a book you bought; you can only own the sheets of paper your copy is printed on; unless, of course, you are the book’s publisher.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
It is also aimed at experienced human rights activists who are looking for a handy collection of facts to use in any confrontations online – or in real life.
Christina Engela
The TSA liked having fresh agents on the job. Fresh agents with a clear mind and steady hand. Time travel wasn’t for the faint of heart. The pay was good though, but as Scrooby had decided long ago, that even if he didn’t get paid for it, the thrill alone was payment enough. Then again, the TSA realized they couldn’t afford to have disgruntled employees with too much time on their hands and the power of the gods at their fingertips, so the pay was very, very good. Debriefing was routine. And how he hated routine! His supervisor was a senior agent called Guy Krummeck, a rather drab character who liked his shiny silver suits almost as much as he liked to go over every little detail at least three times. Minimum. This time everything went right, so it went quick. Twenty minutes later, tired, he clocked out and went home to his small apartment. Tomorrow, after all, was another day again.
Christina Engela
Africa has her mysteries and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.
Miriam Makeba
The answer to the question ‘How many children do you have?’ and the one to the question ‘How many children are you raising?’ are not identical in all cases: some men are not taking care of their own children, some are knowingly or unknowingly raising other men’s children, and some do not even know that they each have a child, another child, or other children.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Literacy makes man a victim of advertising. Education makes him a victim of employment.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Carved deep into my veins but didn't bleedOverdosed on sleeping pills but didn't sleepWhen your heart is heavy, it gets increasingly harder to breatheClearly there's a GodBut why has he forsaken me?
Nomzamo Nhlumayo
True art is a remedy of curiousity and it rise above all expectations.
Unarine Ramaru
The fact that you have just buried your parent or parents and/or sibling or siblings does not make you less likely to die today.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The key to happiness is a regular dose of unhappiness.
Paul Van Der Merwe
If giving to the needy makes me sleep every night, then I will do it everyday.
Gugu Mona
Humility is the displacement of self by the enthronement of God.
Andrew Murray
Human rights protection laws typically come under attack from those who made these laws necessary to begin with.
Christina Engela
Everyone wants to procreate, have a miniature version of themselves running around, to carry on the family line.
Paula Gruben
Most people believe most of the things they believe only because they believe that most people believe them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Ann put the oven to heat. She washed the lamb under the tap, turning it around to clean the entire leg. Then it was dried with a paper towel, stretched out on the cutting board to be hammered flat, and rubbed with salt and rosemary she took from the kitchen window. She waited for the oven to reach two hundred. The cleaned scent of the meat and the clatter of the water in the skink, the branches of rosemary, the dogs finding each other’s ears in the evening, the children being called indoors, servants standing on the road for the Indian bus, and the rising heat of the oven against the remaining heat of the day made her aware of her own happiness. This happiness was like the sea wind when the temperature of the water and the land reversed and everything was free in new darkness.
Imraan Coovadia
Start looking at the glass as half full and not half empty, a positive life is secondary to you being positive.
Unarine Ramaru
It seems that the price of having freedom is having to constantly fight to keep it.
Christina Engela
People who complain about something that they cannot do anything about are as irritating as those who complain about something that they can do something about.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
12% of dreams create jobs. 88% of jobs destroy dreams.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Always distance yourself from gossip because it's the worst form of self-disruption.
Gugu Mona
An expert is an ordinary person who consistently sought knowledge in a specific field and applied it.
Gugu Mona
Some people are so sexually unattractive that the thought of masturbating turns them off.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Some people love but will never marry each other. Some are married to but have never loved and will never love each other.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Restoration is a skilled profession. You might even call it an art in its own right, except that it is frowned on to be original. First rule of restoration: follow the intention of the artist. Never try to improve on him.
J.M. Coetzee
Most people can’t stand spending a few minutes by themself. Yet they expect others to spend an hour, a day, or, even a lifetime, with them.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Some women’s greatest achievement is sleeping with a man who is rich, famous, and/or wanted by many women, whereas some women’s greatest achievement is refusing to sleep with such a man.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Those who deny any group of people human rights are really denying the humanity of that group - and their own.
Christina Engela
People who know their worth understand the power of their own words.
Gift Gugu Mona
If I preached unity, I must act like a unifier, even at the risk of perhaps alienating some of my own colleagues.
Nelson Mandela
Now your burnt ashes float to mingle with others And as I wait for another day I keep singing another song How did I go astray!
Lindiwe Mabuza
Sooner or later you will meet the person you are busy becoming and you'll either be celebrating or regretting base on the choices you making today.
Nicky Verd
Living is the right to exercise Freedom any time without any guilt or whatsoever. Deathis living without Freedom. Resurrection is living for the Dead. Eternity is victory overdeath and not many will taste of it." - Freddy Schofeild Mahhumane
Freddy Sipho Mahhumane
Wise people do not claim to know it all, they always choose to learn from others.
Gift Gugu Mona
There's no point in arguing with an idiot - save for exposing their stupidity in their own words.
Christina Engela
Chances are that whatever that you are worried about—be it a person or a thing—isn’t worried about you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana