authors-from-south-africa

"And so the question as the continent rises is: will we be men and women of courage? Will we be the generation that in 50 years time, our children reference and say ‘They did it right"

"Getting to the next level of life involves reaching another level of self-discipline."

"Do you know that Durban has an economic output higher than some countries in Africa? There’s actually no reason why Durban should be in the state it’s in. It’s the most extraordinary thing for me…"

"A strong, vibrant city centre breathes life into the surrounding neighbourhoods, and in turn, the city itself fuels the strength of the wider state"

"To think of Durban as simply a city is to miss its larger role - it is a vital engine for the state, a bridge between local communities and global markets"

"Put it this way: you have goods coming in (through the port) from the east, going to the west.They go through Durban as a port; Durban is a mega port. I don’t understand why it looks the way it does; it makes no sense to me"

"I am often confused by people who fail to understand the importance of the city centre. The reason you build a city centre is for the rest of the city, and you want the rest of the city to reflect the state or the province"

"We don’t just don’t have the time to do the things that don’t matter. I think we are called on in this season as young Africans to seize power"

"Let me tell you, young people. There is no old person going anywhere. If you want that sit in that office, board room, chamber, or ministry, you are going to have to fight for it. Power is not given, it is taken"

"Your first step, in building your startup online, should be to identify your audience and where they are most active online."

"Finally, she looks up and asks: “Do you have any pets?” She doesn’t know why this question. He shakes his head. He doesn’t like the idea of animals being domesticated. He says something about corrupting the animal spirit. She says: “And cockroaches?”"

"There is horror at the return of some form of South Africanism. Not the imported, quasi-American, spanking “new South Africa”, but the hated South Africa of old, that combination of white industry, conservatism and black tribalism. For the self-styled South African revolutionary, there is one thing worse than the present with its rampant crime, corruption and shortages of water and electricity, and that would be a return to tradition. Whites espousing heterosexual marriage and polite language without four-letter expletives, or singing Die Stem, on the one hand, and blacks embracing their African languages, customs and identity, on the other; that would be the ultimate horror, a “nightmare” come true."

"A lot of people can't understand how we got the shape of the key, but if you break it down – most of the dimensions you get from the lock itself, you measure the hole,” he explained in relation to his escape."

"They were very big locks so you could see the marks on the inside. When you're making it the lock is right there, you keep filing it until it fits in the holes. You hardly have to measure,” he further elaborated."

"I just accepted apartheid because I didn't know any better. I just assumed that's the way things were." — Criminal podcast, Episode 146: Ten Doors, 2020"

"Getting out was a bit like making your way through a jungle: if you know the way and all the hazards that lie before you the chances of getting through are good; if you know nothing the tendency is to take chances based on intuition, with unknown results."

"“That's how you beat the fascists: one act of resistance after another,” and “Freedom is very simple idea, which is why, perhaps, it can be so easily lost”."

"Most people regard hierarchy in human societies as inevitable, a natural part of who we are. Yet this belief contradicts much of the 200,000-year history of Homo sapiens. In fact, our ancestors have for the most part been “fiercely egalitarian”, intolerant of any form of inequality. While hunter-gatherers accepted that people had different skills, abilities and attributes, they aggressively rejected efforts to institutionalise them into any form of hierarchy. So what happened to cause such a profound shift in the human psyche away from egalitarianism? The balance of archaeological, anthropological and genomic data suggests the answer lies in the agricultural revolution, which began roughly 10,000 years ago."