"I have learnt this early on in college, to stay committed to my work because I know for sure at the end of the day I will be reaping the rewards of the work I put in. By Lesego Otlhabanye retrieved ( 9 July 2022)"

". I have learnt to grow up funny enough, to be mature, to invest in my craft through reading, and to be better every single day. BY Lesego Otlhabanye retrieved ( 9 July 2022)"

"Khumo Kgwaadira: Sometimes I fall, I rise up, fall and rise up again by Lesego Otlhabanye, SheLeadaAfrica, retrieved 10-November 2022."

"It's never something easy to do to overcome your fears and talk about them in the public space. By TswaLebs April 27, 2020, 01:00pm TswaLebs, retrieved 10 November 2022."

"This entertainment industry is unkind, complicated and harsh…focus is what has gotten me through. By Lesego Otlhabanye / Retrieved ( 9 July 2022)"

"The tension between the kind of work they wanted to produce was more and more clear on the show. Gary wanted a free-form, topsy-turvy, didactic, screw-you-and-the-world show, his own leftish kind of Paul Harvey hour; this was evident when he ran The Wild Room alone. Ira wanted a form that was more considered, much more ironic and detached, and somehow at the same time it was more intimate--a show that featured artists and writers. This was clear when he ran The Wild Room alone. Together on the show, their on-air banter was increasingly strained and competitive and not especially compelling."

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed! Wait a minute! Someone's crawling out of the hollow top. Someone or...something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks. Are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be... [shout of awe from the crowd] Good heavens! Something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now it's another one, another and another. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. Now it's large, large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face, it... Ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable, I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it so awfully. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is... is kind of V-shaped, with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate. The monster or whatever it is can hardly move. It seems weighed down by... possibly gravity or something. The thing's raising up. The crowd falls back now. They've seen plenty. This is the most extraordinary experience, ladies and gentlemen. I can't find words. I'll pull this microphone with me as I talk. I'll have to stop the description until I can take a new position. Hold on, will you please? I'll be right back in a minute."

"My friends, there are such things as vampires. Had I known at first what now I know...one so precious a life would have been spared for the many of us who loved her. The vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong that he can direct all the elements – the storm, the fog, the thunder – he can command all the meaner things, the moth and bat, the owl, the fox, and the wolf. How then are we to begin our stride to destroy him? How shall we find his place? And having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, it is a terrible task that we undertake. To fail here is not mere life or death. If we fail, we become as him – foul things of the night. As him."

"This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that The War of the Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Mercury Theatres own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying "Boo!" Starting now, we couldn't soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night, so we did the best next thing. We annihilated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the CBS. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn't mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye, everybody, and remember, please, for the next day or so, the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody's there, that was no Martian; it's Halloween."

"I, Jonathan Harker, lawyers clerk, articles to Peter Hawkins, Esquire of Exeter, England, am writing this journal in the hope that if misfortune overtakes me, it may one day come to the eyes of those who love me. I set out from London on the last day of April to visit one of our clients in Eastern Europe. On May the 3rd, I arrived in Budapest and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh on the border of Transylvania. At Bistritz, there was a letter of welcome for me from our client informing me that his carriage would await me at the Borgo Pass. It was signed: "Dracula"."

"[to Lucy] You shall be flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood..."

"October 2nd. Soon after they left, I fell asleep. I remember hearing the sudden barking of the dogs – and then they were silent. I got up and looked out of the window. There was a thin streak of white mist moving across the grass along the wall of the house. It dawned on me that the air in the room was heavy and dank and cold. The gaslight came only like a tiny red spark through the fog. I could see through my eyelids! The mist grew thicker and thicker. Then, as I looked, the spark divided and seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes."

"This is Captain Lansing of the signal corps, attached to the state militia now engaged in military operations in the vicinity of Grovers Mill. Situation arising from the reported presence of certain individuals of unidentified nature is now under complete control. The cylindrical object which lies in a pit directly below our position is surrounded on all sides by eight battalions of infantry. Without heavy field pieces, but adequately armed with rifles and machine guns. All cause for alarm, if such cause ever existed, is now entirely unjustified. The things, whatever they are, do not even venture to poke their heads above the pit. I can see their hiding place plainly in the glare of the searchlights here. With all their reported resources, these creatures can scarcely stand up against heavy machine gun fire. Anyway, it's an interesting outing for the troops. I can make out their khaki uniforms, crossing back and forth in front of the lights. It looks almost like a real war. There appears to be some slight smoke in the woods bordering the Millstone River. Probably fire started by campers. Well, we ought to see some action soon. One of the companies is deploying on the left flank. A quick thrust and it will all be over. Now wait a minute! I see something on top of the cylinder. No, it's nothing but a shadow. Now the troops are on the edge of the Wilmuth farm. Seven thousand armed men closing in on an old metal tube. Wait, that wasn't a shadow! It's something moving. Solid metal, kind of a shield-like affair rising up out of the cylinder. It's going higher and higher. Why, it's, it's standing on legs... actually rearing up on a sort of metal framework. Now it's reaching above the trees and the searchlights are on it. Hold on!"

"[feedback, then filtered voice] Of the creatures in the rocket cylinder at Grovers Mill, I can give you no authoritative information – either as to their nature, their origin, or their purposes here on Earth. Of their destructive instrument, I might venture some conjectural explanation. For want of a better term, I shall refer to the mysterious weapon as a heat ray. It's all too evident that these creatures have scientific knowledge far in advance of our own. It is my guess that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light. That is my conjecture of the origin of the heat ray."

"This castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything. I explored. There are doors, doors, doors everywhere! All of them locked. The door to the great hall, the door to the courtyard, every door in the castle is closed, bolted against me! Castle Dracula is a prison, and I am a prisoner."

"Army bombing plane, V-8-43, off Bayonne, New Jersey, Lieutenant Voght, commanding eight bombers. Reporting to Commander Fairfax, Langham Field. This is Voght, reporting to Commander Fairfax, Langham Field. Enemy tripod machines now in sight. Reinforced by three machines from the Morristown cylinder. Six altogether. One machine partially crippled. Believed hit by shell from army gun in Watchung Mountains. Guns now appear silent. A heavy black fog hanging close to the earth of extreme density, nature unknown. No sign of heat ray. Enemy now turns east, crossing Passaic River into the Jersey marshes. Another straddles the Pulaski Skyway. Evident objective is New York City. They're pushing down a high tension power station. The machines are close together now, and we're ready to attack. Planes circling, ready to strike. A thousand yards and we'll be over the first. 800 yards. 600. 400. 200. There they go! The giant arm raised. [sound of heat ray] Green flash! They're spraying us with flame! 2,000 feet! Engines are giving out! No chance to release bombs! Only one thing left: drop on them, plane and all! We're diving on the first one! Now the engine's gone! Eight— [plane goes down]"

"Citizens of the nation: I shall not try to conceal the gravity of the situation that confronts the country, nor the concern of your government in protecting the lives and property of its people. However, I wish to impress upon you – private citizens and public officials, all of you – the urgent need of calm and resourceful action. Fortunately, this formidable enemy is still confined to a comparatively small area, and we may place our faith in the military forces to keep them there. In the meantime, placing our faith in God, we must continue the performance of our duties each and every one of us, so that we may confront this destructive adversary with a nation united, courageous, and consecrated to the preservation of human supremacy on this Earth. I thank you."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now explain that six months before the events recorded here, I had become engaged to a young lady, Lucy Westenra. We were to be married in the Spring. My old teacher, Professor Van Helsing, arrived at four the next afternoon. I took him at once to Lucy's house. She lay in her bed, asleep. She was ghastly, chalky pale. The red had seem to have gone even from her lips and gums. And the bones of her face stood out."

"Ladies and gentlemen—am I on? Ladies and gentlemen... Ladies and gentlemen, here I am, back of a stone wall that adjoins Mr. Wilmuth's garden. From here I get a sweep of the whole scene. I'll give you every detail as long as I can talk. As long as I can see. More state police have arrived. They're drawing up a cordon in front of the pit, about 30 of them. No need to push the crowd back now. They're willing to keep their distance. The captain is conferring with someone. I can't quite see who. Oh yes, I believe it's Professor Pierson. Yes, it is. Now they've parted. The Professor moves around one side, studying the object, while the captain and two policemen advance with something in their hands. I can see it now. It's a white handkerchief tied to a pole...a flag of truce. If those creatures know what that means, what anything means... [hissing sound followed by a humming that increases in intensity] Wait a minute! Something's happening! A humped shape is rising out of the pit. I can make out a small beam of light against a mirror. What's that? There's a jet of flame springing from the mirror, and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on! Good lord, they're turning into flame! [screams and unearthly shrieks] Now the whole field's caught fire! [explosion] The woods, the barns, the gas tanks of automobiles! It's spreading everywhere! It's coming this way now! About 20 yards to my right— [crash of microphone, then dead silence]"

"After parting with the artilleryman, I came at last to the Holland tunnel. I entered that silent tube, anxious to know the fate of the great city on the other side of the Hudson. Cautiously, I came out of the tunnel and made my way up Canal Street. I reached 14th Street, and there again were black powder and several bodies, and an evil ominous smell from the gratings of the cellars of some of the houses. I wandered up through the 30s and 40s; I stood alone on Times Square. I caught sight of a lean dog running down 7th Avenue with a piece of dark brown meat in his jaws, and a pack of starving mongrels at his heels. He made a wide circle around me, as though he feared I might prove a fresh competitor. I walked up Broadway in the direction of that...that strange powder – past silent shop windows, displaying their mute wares to empty sidewalks – past the Capitol Theatre, silent, dark – past a shooting gallery, where a row of empty guns faced an arrested line of wooden ducks. Near Columbus Circle, I noticed models of 1939 motorcars in the showrooms facing empty streets. From over the top of the General Motors Building, I watched a flock of black birds circling in the sky. I hurried on. Suddenly I caught sight of the hood of a Martian machine, standing somewhere in Central Park, gleaming in the late afternoon sun. An insane idea! I...I rushed recklessly across Columbus Circle and into the park. I...I climbed a small hill above the pond at 60th Street. From there I could see, standing in a silent row along the mall, 19 of those great metal titans, their cowls empty, their steel arms hanging listlessly by their sides. I looked in vain for the monsters that inhabit those machines. Suddenly, my eyes were attracted to the immense flock of black birds that hovered directly below me. They circled to the ground, and there before my eyes, stark and silent, lay the Martians, with the hungry birds pecking and tearing brown shreds of flesh from their dead bodies. Later, when their bodies were examined in the laboratories, it was found that they were killed by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their immune systems were unprepared. Slain, after all man's defenses had failed, by the humblest things that God in His wisdom has put upon this Earth. Before the cylinder fell, there was a general persuasion that through all the deep of space, no life existed beyond the petty surface of our minute sphere. Now we see further. Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life spreading slowly from this little seedbed of the solar system throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space. But that is a remote dream. Maybe...maybe that the destruction of the Martians is only a reprieve. To them, and not to us, is the future ordained, perhaps. Strange, it now seems, to sit in my peaceful study at Princeton...writing down this last chapter of the record begun at a deserted farm in Grover's Mill. Strange to see from my window the University spires dim and blue through an April haze. Strange to watch children playing in the streets. Strange to see young people strolling on the green, where the new spring grass heals the last black scars of a bruised Earth. Strange to watch the sightseers enter the museum where the disassembled parts of a Martian machine are kept on public view. Strange when I recall the time when I first saw it, bright and clean cut, hard, and silent, under the dawn of that last great day."

"Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Arthur Seward. I am here tonight to bear witness to the truth of certain events which you may find it hard to believe, but I ask you to believe them. I have here certain documents, telegrams, clippings from the press of the day, memoranda and letters in various hands. All needless matters have been eliminated. Through the history almost at variance with the possibilities of contemporary belief, they stand forth as simple fact. I present you, first, with excerpts from the private journal of Jonathan Harker."

"Ladies and gentlemen, all the evidence in this case is now before you. I've added nothing. And to the best of my knowledge, I have omitted nothing that might help to throw light upon the extraordinary events of the year 1891, which culminated on that terrible evening in the Borgo Pass. There remains only this one last report."

"August 4th. I am all alone on my ship – and still the fog. I dared not go below. I dared not leave the helm. So here, all night, I stayed. And in the dimness of the night, I saw it. I saw him! God forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard! It was better to die like a sailor in the blue water. But I am captain and I must not leave my ship. I shall tie my hands to the wheel – when my strength begins to fail – and along with them, I shall tie that which it dare not touch – my crucifix! I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. God and the Blessed Virgin help a poor, ignorant soul trying to do his duty."

"You waste your bullets, gentlemen. You think you baffle me. You with your pale faces all in a row like sheep in a butcher's. You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. And time is on my side. The one you love is mine already. I have known her. Already my mark is on her throat. Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. She is with me always, over land or sea!"

"My friends, we, too, are not without strength. The vampire flourishes on the blood of the living. Without this, he cannot live. He throws no shadow. He makes no reflection in a mirror. He can transform himself to a wolf, to a bat. He can come on moonlight rays as elemental dust. He can see in the dark. He can do all these things...yet he is not free. His power ceases at the coming of the day. Then, until night, he must remain in the shape in which he finds himself and, except in his coffin home – in those earth boxes – he cannot rest. When we can confine him in his coffin, then, my friends, if we obey what we know, we will destroy him!"

"When Mina Harker seized the stake and hammer from her husband, I believe she was under some form of hypnosis. She herself remembers nothing, but whatever influence was at work on her, she must at the last moment have rejected it. For at the exact instant the sun disappeared, it was Mina Harker who drove the stake through the heart of the thing that called itself Dracula. At that same instant, even as we looked, the wound on the side of her throat was no more. As for Dracula, before the screams of the creature had died from our ears, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight. In that final moment of dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace such as I never could have imagined, might have rested there."

"We know now that in the early years of the 20th century, this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own. We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacence, people went to and fro over the Earth about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion over this small spinning fragment of solar driftwood which by chance or design man has inherited out of the dark mystery of time and space. Yet across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that are to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this Earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. In the 39th year of the 20th century came the great disillusionment. It was near the end of October. Business was better. The war scare was over. More men were back at work. Sales were picking up. On this particular evening, October 30th, the Crossley service estimated that 32 million people were listening in on radios..."

"[to Mina] You shall be flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood... blood of my blood..."

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dr. Seward. Mr. Harker's journal terminates at this point. I now present into evidence a clipping dated August 8th of that year from the Yorkshire Telegraph from my correspondence in Whitby. One of the greatest and sudden of storms on record was experienced here today. The weather has been somewhat sultry, but Saturday evening was fine, the band was playing, the piers were crowded with holiday-makers. The winds went away entirely in the evening, and there was a dead calm. There were but few lights at sea. The only sail noticeable was a foreign schooner, under full canvas, that was seemingly going westward. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming. Then, without warning, the tempest broke. And there, with all sails set, was the foreign schooner rushing with terrific speed toward the shore. A searchlight was turned on her, and there lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head which swayed horribly to-and-fro at each motion of the ship. A moment later, she crashed. Then a strange thing was seen. At the very instant she touched, a huge dog sprang up on deck from below, and running forward, jumped from the bow onto the sand and making straight up the east cliff toward the graveyard, vanished into the night. The coast guard going abroad at dawn found the dead man fastened to a spoke of the wheel, tightly clutched in one hand was a crucifix. The man must have been dead for quite two days. In the pocket of the dead man's coat was found a bottle, carefully corked, containing a roll of paper. This proved to be an addendum to the ship's log. There was found on board only a small amount of cargo and that of a most unusual nature. Apparently the ship carried nothing but earth, common earth, packed away in wooden boxes – shaped much like coffins."

"As I set down these notes on paper, I'm obsessed by the thought that I may be the last living man on Earth. I've been hiding in this empty house near Grovers Mill, a small island of daylight cut off by the black smoke from the rest of the world. All that happened before the arrival of these monstrous creatures in the world now seems part of another life...a life that has no continuity with the present, furtive existence of the lonely derelict who pencils these words on the back of some astronomical notes bearing the signature of Richard Pierson. I look down at my blackened hands, my torn shoes, my tattered clothes, and I try to connect them with a professor who lives at Princeton, and who on the night of October 20th, glimpsed through his telescope an orange splash of light on a distant planet. My wife, my colleagues, my students, my books, my observatory, my...my world. Where are they? Did they ever exist? Am I Richard Pierson? What day is it? Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands left to wind the clocks? In writing down my daily life I tell myself I shall preserve human history between the dark covers of this little book that was meant to record the movements of the stars, but...to write, I must live, and to live, I must eat. I find moldy bread in the kitchen, and an orange not too spoiled to swallow. I keep watch at the window. From time to time I catch sight of a Martian above the black smoke. The smoke still holds the house in its black coil, but at length there's a hissing sound and suddenly I see a Martian mounted on his machine, spraying the air with a jet of steam, as if to dissipate the smoke. I watch in a corner as his huge metal legs nearly brush against the house. Exhausted by terror, I fall asleep. It's morning. Morning! Sun streams in the window. The black cloud of gas has lifted, and the scorched meadows to the north look as though a black snowstorm has passed over them. I venture from the house. I make my way to a road. No traffic. Here and there a wrecked car, baggage overturned, a blackened skeleton. I push on north. For some reason I feel safer trailing these monsters than running away from them. And I keep a careful watch. I have seen the Martians...feed. Should one of their machines appear over the top of trees, I'm ready to fling myself flat on the Earth. I come to a chestnut tree. October. Chestnuts are ripe. I fill my pockets. I must keep alive. For two days I wander in a vague northerly direction through a desolate world. Finally I notice a living creature: a small red squirrel in a beech tree. I stare at him, and wonder. He stares back at me. I believe at that moment the animal and I share the same emotion...the joy of finding another living being. I push on north. I find dead cows in a brackish field. Beyond, the charred ruins of a dairy. The silo remains standing guard over the wasteland like a lighthouse deserted by the sea. Astride the silo perches a weathercock. The arrow points north. North. The next day I came to a city, a city vaguely familiar in its contours, yet its buildings strangely dwarfed and leveled off, as if a giant had sliced off its highest towers with a capricious sweep of his hand. I reached the outskirts. I found Newark. Newark, undemolished, but humbled by some whim of the advancing Martians. Presently, with an odd feeling of being watched, I caught sight of something crouching in a doorway. I made a step towards it, and it...rose up and became a man – a man, armed with a large knife."

"Morning, June the 30th. These may be the last words I ever write in this diary. God preserve my sanity! I have never seen Count Dracula by day. At sunrise, at the first cock-crow, he is gone. I...I don't understand these things. I only know that the wolves are baying and that he is a man with hair on the palms of his hands, with sharp teeth and no blood on his face. He casts no shadow. He cannot be seen in a glass. And he moves like a bat across the shear face of the castle walls. He eats no food, and is mortally afraid of the crucifix. As I write this, I hear in the courtyard the rolling of heavy wheels and the cracking of whips. And there is in the passageway below a pound of heavy boxes being set down, boxes shaped like coffins, and I know what they hold. The boxes are filled with holy earth from the chapel beneath the castle. The last box being nailed down. And now I hear the heavy feet tramping again. The door is shut, and the chains rattle. In the courtyard and down the rocky way, the roll of heavy wheels, the cracks of whips. Help! Help! Help!! The wagons have gone. I'm alone in the castle. I'm alone in the castle. I'm alone in the castle! I'm alone! I'm alone! I'm alone!!"

"Rock and roll music ... is not rhythm and blues music; it's not country and western music; it's not jazz; it's a combination of these things."

"Audio of 1978 edition"

"I included nearly every record I ever rem[em]ber hearing."

"What they call rock and roll now is rhythm and blues: I've been playing for 15 years in New Orleans."

"I wanted to write about school because most of my audience at the particular time was of a school element."

"Michael Vick is like the Atkins Diet....it's over."

"Michael Gove looks like a PEZ dispenser possessed by a Victorian ghost."

"Stephanie Cole — Carolyn Knapp-Shappey"

"Roger Allam — First Officer Douglas Richardson"

"Benedict Cumberbatch — Captain Martin Crieff"

"John Finnemore — Arthur Shappey"

"Anthony Head — Captain Herc Shipwright"

"Anna Crilly — First Officer Linda Fairburn"

"Timothy West — Gordon Shappey"

"Alex MacQueen — Dr. Peter Duncan"

"Melisande Cook — Helena Richardson"

"Geoffrey Whitehead — Mr. Birling"

"Matilda Ziegler — Princess Theresa of Liechtenstein"

"A veritable schoolroom of the airwaves … significant records … leaving the story-telling … to the interview subjects."