"I would like to remind the black ministry, and indeed all black people, that God is not in the habit of coming down from heaven to solve people’s problems on earth."

"Happy the eyes that can close."

"One day in Johannesburg, and already the tribe was being rebuilt, the house and soul being restored."

"The blacks are tired of standing at the touchlines to witness a game that they should be playing. They want to do things for themselves and all by themselves.”"

"The white man has broken the tribe. And it is my belief - and again I ask your pardon - that it cannot be mended again. But the house that is broken, and the man that falls apart when the house is broken, these are the tragic things. That is why children break the law, and old white people are robbed and beaten."

"But when that dawn will come ... why, that is a secret."

"And he knew then that this was a man who put his feet upon a road."

"We believe in the brotherhood of man, but ... do not want it in South Africa."

"There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa."

"The old man was tempted ... and the father's compassion struggled with ... temptation and overcame it."

"They go to Johannesburg, and there they are lost, and no one hears of them at all."

"What Black Consciousness seeks to do is to produce real black people who do not regard themselves as appendages to white society. We do not need to apologise for this because it is true that the white systems have produced through the world a number of people who are not aware that they too are people."

"It was permissible to allow the destruction of a tribal system that impeded ... growth."

"He stopped, and was silent ... for this was a new brother that he saw."

"I have one great fear in my heart ... they will find we are turned to hating."

"You have shamed us ... How could you do this to us?"

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear."

"Johannesburg [has] so many streets ... [one can go] up one and down another, and never the same one twice."

"Deep down the fear of a man ... beyond any recall."

"The tribe was broken ... and the maize hardly reached to the height of a man."

"There is laughter in the house ... it is in truth bad laughter."

"You have shamed us, he says in a low voice, not wishing to make it known to the world. A liquor seller, a prostitute with a child, and you do not know where it is? Your brother a priest. How could you do this to us?"

"Book 1 chapter.6. Paragraphs 55-9."

"Book 1.chapter 6. Paragraphs 2-4"

"Will [Absalom] ever return? [the reform school employee] asked, indifferently, carelessly. — I do not know, she said. She said it tonelessly, hopelessly, as one who is used to waiting, to desertion. She said it as one who expects nothing from her seventy years upon the earth. No rebellion will come out of her, no demands, no fierceness. Nothing will come out of her at all save the children of men who will use her, leave her, forget her. And so slight was her body, and so few her years, that Kumalo for all his suffering was moved to compassion."

"These hills [near Ixopo] are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it."

"My friend, your anxiety turned to fear ... sorrow may enrich."

"That is a pity, says Msimangu. I am not a man for segregation, but it is a pity that we are not apart. They run trams from the centre of the city, and part is for Europeans and part for us. But we are often thrown off the trams by young hooligans. And our hooligans are ready for trouble too. — But the authorities, do they allow that? — They do not. But they cannot watch every tram. And if a trouble develops, who can find how it began and who will tell the truth? It is a pity we are not apart."

"We have a responsibility not only to ourselves but also to the society from which we spring.”"

"You see, my brother, there is no proof that my son or this other young man was there at all."

"We do what is in us, and why it is in us, that is also a secret. It is Christ in us, crying that men may be succoured and forgiven, even when He Himself is forsaken."

"Have no doubt it is fear in his eyes."

"Chapter 15."

"And he was silent again, for who is not silent when someone is dead, who was a small bright boy?"

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."

"The truth is that our society is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of high assurance and desperate anxiety, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possession. Allow me a minute.."

"The tribe was broken, and would be mended no more."

"All roads lead to Johannesburg."

"Now God be thanked that the name of a hill is such music, that the name of a river can heal."

"I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men...desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it...I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating."

"Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who indeed knows why there can be comfort in a world of desolation."

"This is no time to talk of hedges and fields, or the beauties of any country...Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end."

"No second Johannesburg is needed upon the earth. One is enough."

"I write what i want!"

"It suited the white man to break the tribe, [Msimangu] continues gravely. But it has not suited him to build something in the place of what is broken. I have pondered this for many hours and I must speak it, for it is the truth for me. They are not all so. There are some white men who give their lives to build up what is broken."

""However kindly she may be treated by her own people, she will never be courted and married in the normal way; she is marked for life as the property of a stranger, and no one will approach her save in the the spirit of lugubrious sensual pity that she detected and rejected in me. No wonder she fell asleep so often, no wonder she was happier peeling vegetables than in my bed!" (135)."

""No one can accept that the imperial army has been annihilated by men with bows and arrows and rusty old guns who live in tents and cannot read or write"."

"“Looking at him I wonder how he felt the very first time: did he, invited as an apprentice to twist the pincers or turn the screw or whatever it is they do, shudder even a little to know that at that instant he was trespassing into the forbidden? I find myself wondering too whether he has a private ritual of purification, carried out behind closed doors, to enable him to return and break bread with other men”."

"The distance between myself and her torturers, I realize, is negligible”"