They say (she had read somewhere) that no one ever disappears, up in the atmosphere, stratosphere, whatever you call space–atoms infinitely minute, beyond conception of existence, are up there forever, from the whole world, from...

Pero las cuestiones humanas no conducían a conclusiones tajantes, al trazado de una línea ni a una suma total. Parecían resolverse, disolverse, cuando sólo se estaban formando de nuevo, reuniéndose en otra combinación. Incluso cuando...

Death is really the mystery of life, isn’t it?

… what it really was like to live a life determined by the struggle to be free, as desert dwellers’ days are determined by the struggle against thirst and those of dwellers amid snow and...

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

I’m an atheist. I wouldn’t even call myself an agnostic. I am an atheist.

Nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.

I am an African. I am white. I, in my humble way, and others in their much more brave way, have earned that right.

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...

The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It’s quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.

Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you’ve made sense of one small area.

Books don’t need batteries.

My work means that we have lived in different parts of the world and in each there has always been something to be afraid of. Gangsters, extremist political groups Right and Left tossing bombs into...

Communists are the last optimists.

You can’t change a regime on the basis of compassion. There’s got to be something harder.

How did I find out? I was deceiving him.

I’m happy to be a card-carrying member of the ANC.

The facts are always less than what really happened.

The creative act is not pure.

A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.

I don’t cry. Unfortunately, I seem rather short of tears, so my sorrows have to stay inside me.

I would be guilty only if I were innocent of working to destroy racism in my country.