Actors From South Africa

"It's the likes of you that kept the Inquisition in business. It's called bigotry.""

"We need a definition of greatness, and I suppose that would be somebody who... somebody who benefited all mankind.""

""It doesn't have to be that way. There something called progress, you know. We don't exactly burn people at the stake anymore."

"All you've got to do is stand up and walk away from it."

"He certainly was trying to teach people to get the steps right."

"Not just me. What I'm saying to you is that everybody's got it."

"It was you who start me ballroom dancing."

"You want to get into the story as well, do you?"

"Little white boy ... and a black man old enough to be his father flying a kite."

"In fact, I was shit-scared that we were going to make fools of ourselves."

"Sam, Willie ... is he in there with you boys?"

"Tolstoy may have educated his peasants, but I've educated you."

"I'm all right on oppression."

"But things will change, you wait and see."

"Flicker of morbid interest."

"Bullshit, as usual."

"Sam: So then what is art? Hally: You want a definition? Sam: Ja. Hally: [He realizes he has got to be careful. He gives the matter a lot of thought before answering.] Philosophers have been trying to do that for centuries. What is Art? What is Life? But basically I suppose it's... the giving of meaning to matter. Sam: Nothing to do with beautiful? Hally: It goes beyond that. It's the giving of form to the formless."

"Life is just a plain bloody mess, that's all. And people are fools."

"Be careful, Hally." "Of what? The truth? I seem to be the only one around here who is prepared to face it."

"Sam: There's no collisions out there, Hally. Nobody trips or stumbles or bumps into anybody else. That's what that moment is all about. To be one of those finalists on that dance floor is like... like being in a dream about a world in which accidents don't happen. Hally: Jesus, Sam! That's beautiful! Willie: [Can endure waiting no longer.] I'm starting! [Willie dances while Sam talks.] Sam: Of course it is. That's what I've been trying to say to you all afternoon. And it's beautiful because that is what we want life to be like. But instead, like you said, Hally, we're bumping into each other all the time. Look at the three of us this afternoon. I've bumped into Willie, the two of us have bumped into you, you've bumped into your mother, she bumping into your Dad... None of us knows the steps and there's no music playing. And it doesn't stop with us. The whole world is doing it all the time. Open a newspaper and what do you read? America has bumped into Russia, England is bumping into India, rich man bumps into poor man. Those are big collisions, Hally. They make for a lot of bruises. People get hurt in all that bumping, and we're sick and tired of it now. It's been going on for too long. Are we never going to get it right? ... Learn to dance life like champions instead of always being just a bunch of beginners at it? Hally: You've got a vision, Sam! Sam: Not just me. What I'm saying to you is that everybody's got it. That's why there's only standing room left for the Centenery Hall in two weeks' time. For as long as the music lasts, we are going to see six couples get it right, the way we want life to be. Hally: But is that the best we can do, Sam watch six finalists dreaming about the way it should be? Sam: I don't know. But it starts with that. Without the dream we won't know what we're going for. And anyway I reckon there are a few people who have got past just dreaming about it and are trying for something real."

"It's just that life felt the right size in there... not too big and not too small. Wasn't so hard to work up a bit of courage. It's got so bloody complicated since then."

"Yes! That's what all our talk about a decent world has been... just so much bullshit.""We did say it was still only a dream.""And a bloody useless one at that. Life's a fuck-up and it's never going to change."

"Anybody who thinks there's nothing wrong with this world needs to have his head examined. Just when things are going all right, without fail someone or something will come along and spoil everything. Somebody should write that down as a fundamental law of the Universe. The principle of perpetual disappointment. If there is a God who created this world, he should scrap it and try again."

"Hold it, Robert. Hold it just like that. Just one more. Now smile Robert... Smile... Smile..."

"Are you really worried about your children, friend, or are you just worried about yourself and your bloody name? Wake up, man! Use that bloody book and with your pay on Friday you'll have a real chance to do something for them."

"I don't want to lose my name, Buntu."

"What's wrong with me? I'm a man. I've got eyes to see. I've got ears to listen when people talk. I've got a good head to think things. What's wrong with me?"

"I don't want to die."

"Betty Jones. Roodepoort. Young and pleasing personality. I’d like to correspond with gentlemen friends of maturity. No teenagers need reply. My hobby at the moment is histori¬ cal films, but I’m prepared to go back to last year’s, which was autograph hunting. I would appreciate a photo¬ graph"

"Twenty-two and no strings attached. Would like letters from men of the same age or older. My \interests are beauty contests and going out. A snap with the first letter, please."

"Ethel Lange, 10 de Villiers Street, Oudtshoom. I am eighteen years old and well-developed and would like to correspond with a gent of sober habits and a good outlook on life. My interests are nature, rock-and-roll, swimming and a happy future. My motto is, ‘rolling stones gather no moss.’ Please note: I promise to reply faithfully"

"No smell doth stink as sweet as labour, Tis joyous times when man and man Do work and sweat in common toil.When all the world’s my neighbor."

"Too many cooks spoil the broth"

"For all agonies of the joints: Lum¬ bago, rheumatism, tennis elbows, housemaid’s knees;also ideal for bunions, corns, callouses"

"You must understand this. We own nothing except ourselves. This world and its laws, allows us nothing except ourselves."

"Burn that book? Stop kidding yourself, Sizwe! Anyway, suppose you do. You must immediately go apply for a new one. Right? And until that new one comes, be careful the police don’t stop you and ask for your book. Into the Courtroom, brother. Charge: Failing to produce Reference Book on demand. Five rand or five days."

"This is a strong-room of dreams. The dreamers? My people. The simple people, who you never find mentioned in the history books, who never get statutes erected to them, or monuments commemorating their great deeds. People who would be forgotten, and their dreams with them, if it wasn’t for Styles. That’s what I do, friends. Put down, in my way, on paper the dreams and hopes of my people so that even their children’s children will remember a man."

"I took a good look at my life. What did I see? A bloody circus monkey! Selling most of his time on earth to another man. Out of every twenty-four hours I could only properly call mine the six when I was sleeping. What the hell is the use of that?"

"I like the thought of this little white girl"

"I notice your brother got boots. All policemen got boots. Good luck to him, any¬ way, and Lucy too. Write soon. Zachariah Pietersen"

"I’m sure you’d like to know I got your letter, and the picture. I’d say Oudtshoom seems okay. You were quite okay too. I would like to send you a picture of me, but it’s this way. It’s winter down here. The light is bad, the lake is black, the birds have gone. Wait for spring, when things improve. Okay? Good. I heard you ask about my car. Yes. I have it. We pumped the tires today. Tomorrow I think I’ll put in some gas. I’d like to take you for a drive, Ethel, and Lucy too. In fact. I’d like to drive both of you. They say over here. I’m fast. Ethel I’ll tell you this. If I could drive you, Ethel, I would do it so fast, Ethel, and Lucy too, both of you, so fast I would, do it so fast, fast, fast it would hurt—"

"Sorry to offend but in my books Blacks were the architects of Apartheid. Go figure."

"I do this in the interests of my colleagues and our big production team. I understand the enormous challenges in terms of infrastructure and costs and what the loss of income would mean to my fellow artists. [Sun International would refuse us their venue in the Cape if I don't make the decision.] It will always grieve me that money, sponsors and political narrative dictate our culture and our arts today. I don't know that language and I have no need to ever learn it. I will not bow my knee to the haters of acquittal, and no boycott will make me silent about my people's grievances. … My tours will continue regardless and I will not hesitate to trumpet the names of our nation's exterminators, while Sun International, Toyota, MTN and Multichoice have no word on the incitement to violence and hate speech against my people. If they can silence me, they can gently remove us from the picture."

"Dear @zilevandamme and @ZindziMandela I'm a South African tax-paying citizen. Effectively, I AM your boss. You WILL jump when I say so and you WILL ask how high. And when you come to take our lives & land, you WILL die. Our contract is that simple. And don't you forget it."

"Dear Charlize [Theron], My daughter sometimes wears pants. She is 20-months-old. Do you think it’s time to ask whether she’s also feeling an excess of Y-chromosomes?"

"Hofmeyr's statement that black South Africans "suck up the propaganda of entitlement" in order to "justify their brutality" is profoundly repugnant. It demonstrates deep-seated prejudiced views that are completely inconsistent with the values that inform our constitutional state, it lowers the standard of constructive political and social debate, and it sets back efforts to build a truly nonracial, compassionate South African society. … Every South African who is committed to building a compassionate society should reject Hofmeyr's comments. They are more reminiscent of a bygone era of racial domination under Apartheid than the kind of conversation one expects to hear in a multiracial democracy in 2010."

"Your threat is racist in the worst traditions of racial nationalism and undermines the position of white people in South Africa. You are obviously ignorant of the fact that white people occupy a very privileged and controversial position in South Africa. Their long term future in the country depends on the extent to which they can use that position to promote a more stable, just, and prosperous society. … You, however, use your not insignificant following to sow anger and hate among young white people. It is incredible that you nonetheless seem to believe that this behavior improves the position of white South Africans. Only the opposite can be true. … It shames me therefore to think that you have emerged as a leadership figure of any stature at all in the white and Afrikaner communities. You are in fact an embarrassment to liberal Afrikaners and a disgrace to South Africa."

"[If] you read the news once a week, I promise you, you'll be as informed as somebody who's reading it every single day. You know why? 'Cause when you're reading it every day, you are caught in the cycle of it trying to discover what it doesn't know yet."

"Every year under apartheid, some colored people would get promoted to white. People could submit applications to the government. Your hair might become straight enough, your skin might become light enough, your accent might become polished enough — -and you’d be reclassified as white. All you had to do was denounce your people, denounce your history, and leave your darker-skinned fiends and family behind."

"What was ironic to me was that white people had spent years seeing video of black people being beaten to death by other white people, but this one video of a black man kicking a cat, that’s what sent them over the edge."