People From Johannesburg

"When democracy was ushered in, it was never assumed that the road to the attainment of material freedom, justice and equality would be an easy path to traverse"

"We must remember that this nation is more than a composition of its challenges"

""Liberty is the soul's right... not the state's gift." — Marcel Nel, X reply to @caesarionist, 07:54 UTC (10:54 SAST), 17 September 2025."

"So while holding on, I took every opportunity to learn. In every audition as a casting assistant I would ‘play’ alongside distinguished actors, not just read for them but give a performance"

"Truthfully, I wanted to quit many times, sometimes I still do. But there was always this very silent voice within me echoing ‘hold on Steph, the best is yet to come"

"But for years I felt unqualified, seeking validation from anyone and everyone, validation that I had what it took to be a ‘thespian’. I’d idolise fellow actors and wish I could be as authentic and as vulnerable as they were"

"This was acting school for me, I would watch and absorb choices these actors made, watch movies and ‘steal’ from other actors. All while sitting behind the NFH reception desk as the featured extra"

"Absorb, learn, long story short, I am so proud of the actor I’ve become [it took me forever to even refer to myself as an actor] I look at the growth from when I started, not having a clue what I was doing [sometimes I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing to this day]."

"What started out as a way to make some extra cash on the side turned into a full-blown love for the art of storytelling"

"Long and vulnerable but perhaps it inspires someone. So, for those who don’t know, acting was never the plan. It was never even an option really, I was an academic, well on my way to my PhD in social linguistics"

"I am still not where I’d like to be but I’m so thankful that God qualifies the seemingly unqualified and his purposes far outweigh the opinion of anyone else. So, I push on and push through and little by little step into all he has planned for me"

"This kind of racism was rife in the early years of our democracy. It relegated whites to "second class citizens", unable to state a fact if any black person might be offended by it. This warped logic has thankfully diminished somewhat due to many (black and white) South Africans rejecting it for the nonsense that it is."

"The story of [Zuma's] actions on that fateful night last year is a sad reflection on the former deputy president's morals and code of conduct. Zuma is not fit to lead a country where women's rights are high on the agenda, where the fight against Aids is, or should be, an urgent national priority and where the protection of the weak and vulnerable is the duty of the powerful. South Africa deserves a president who can lead by example. Jacob Zuma has shown he cannot do that."

"It is difficult to reach consensus on a definition of racism, but most people agree that it starts with generalizations. It involves projecting the attributes of an individual onto a group as a whole on the basis of race, with pejorative connotations. Heidi Holland's narrative is a classic example of this kind of racist thinking."

"'I had been waiting in Harare for five weeks and had been vetted and grilled. In the end I received a call telling me I should be at State House in half an hour. I arrived at 10am and three hours later His Excellency - "HE" as everyone calls him - received me.'"

"I think he granted me the interview because he feels he is getting old and it's time to put certain things on the record. But he expects to win the election and probably will.'"

"'I needed help in understanding how events in Mugabe's life, including his childhood, had impacted on his internal narrative.' By the time Mugabe was 10, his father had left home and his older brother had died. 'Mugabe has a thin skin and shaky self-image. When rejected or humiliated, he turns to revenge. His relationship with the British government has the intensity of a family feud.'"

"Reconciliation is needed more than ever. We see Black Lives Matter demonstrations throughout the world, calling attention to inequality, racism and senseless violence. Inflammatory language on social media and even in politics serves to increase social polarisation. All too often, the world is shocked by extreme acts of violence prompted by prejudice against those of a certain religion, ethnicity, sexuality or gender identity."

""Living, Forgiving, Remembering | Museum Arnhem." www.museumarnhem.nl. Retrieved 27 March 2025."

"Through the themes of the body, sexuality, self-representation, motherhood, beliefs, the exhibition questions how the question of intimacy in black women reveals unspoken words and manifests their relationship to the world. It offers a reflection where the notions of memory, family, spirituality and imagination are intertwined. The creations presented - painting, pottery, photography, video, performance, embroidery etc. - celebrate the emancipatory energy of the "power of their hands"."

"The first performance I did at the Theater Spektakel was basically around reparations, how we take back the land, and I used the student protests as the starting point. I started with video pieces of these different camps for Boere (Afrikaans) guys who run the camp because they think black people are going to invade and kill them all, and then I move on to the student protests, and after that I go to the land matter. It’s also about how the female black body is viewed in protests, how black women have protested certain things, and how they are kept out of protest history. If women must protest they must protest not to make a mark, you know, it’s not like you can be a part of the ANC and be there with Mandela."

"I don’t think so, I think there are really strong individuals and people will be surprised when we show individually. The thing is, they don’t give people a chance. That’s the main problem."

""The simplest thing, I could literally just have an exhibition by putting this bowl down. For me, that would be enough. But for some people they’ve always got to go extra, extra, extra. I don’t feel the same way."

"If these were the works universally exalted across America’s art museums, if these were the images filling the heads of American children over generations, what would America’s conversations about race, gender and sexuality sound like today?"

"Well you know, sometimes I get so irritated with audiences, especially male audiences who will say stupid things like “that’s a nice ass” or something like that. For me, I think as long as the performer knows exactly what the intention is with the body everybody will get over everything else. There are some people who just don’t get it, and that’s ok too. I know what my body is loaded with. I know what it is and I know how to use it. I know I’ve gotten to the point where I know how it works. I don’t necessarily care anymore."

"You are born here, and yet you can’t speak one vernacular language is an issue for me. You’ve had the chance, I mean you are surrounded by people, are you telling me that as a white person you are honestly not going to make that effort. I know how to speak English, I wasn’t born around people who speak English, and I was born around people who speak isiXhosa, isiZulu. Yet I know how to speak seSotho, which is totally different from my own language, and you are telling me it’s difficult to speak one. So I’m just not buying it. I’m not interested. I title my work in a language that resonates with the work. It is also to exclude, because I know you can’t speak it, and I know that most of the audience coming in need a translation, which forces you to engage with the work even further. So it’s also a conscious decision – it might be a bad strategy, but at this point in time I don’t really care – I’m going to continue doing it.""

"I'm in the world. Artists are in the world . . . My role is to get artists’ work out into the world, and excite people about it [while] being respectful [and] finding artists people won’t be familiar with."

"A lot can be achieved when a committee understands what it has to do, which is to ensure that government accounts. It is not always easy for the parties to agree."

"If oversight is not done properly, including respecting the Broadcasting Act in as far as the SABC is concerned, it leads to a lot of problems"

"I wish the portfolio committee well in dealing with this task. The shortest process is for the president to get members of the board to step down and then constitute an interim board"

"moving forward, a much more stringent process must be exercised when choosing people for an asset such as the public broadcaster."

"I met serious challenges beyond what I can carry and therefore cannot successfully deliver the mandate vested in me to the best of my abilities.”"

"We should not allow a situation where people can challenge Parliament when it is doing its duty. An inquiry might take too long. My opinion is to use a shortcut – go straight to Zuma – for the sake of the country,"

"Bohm’s solution was simple and logical. We have been wrongly interpreting the nature of matter and the universe itself. The message never travelled across space and time at all because both these constructs are an illusion brought about by the brain. In fact the two particles were really one particle all the time and as such they both ‘knew’ what was happening to each of them."

"The function of the brain and the nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and otherwise irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive."

"It was once said that religion explains in terms of agents what science explains in terms of processes."

"The power of one is above all things the power to believe in yourself, ofen well beyond any latent ability you may have previously demonstrated. The mind is the athlete, the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further, or box better."

"Always in life an idea starts small, it is only a sapling idea, but the vines will come and they will try to choke your idea so it cannot grow, and it will die and you will never know you had a big idea, an idea so big it could have grown thirty meters through the dark canopy of leaves and touched the face of the sky. The vines are people who are afraid of originality, of new thinking. Most people you encounter will be vines; when you are a young plant they are very dangerous. Always listen to yourself, Peekay. It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you have learned something and you grow stronger. If you are right, you have taken another step toward a fulfilling life."

"Racism does not diminish with brains, it's a disease, a sickness, it may incubate in ignorance but it doesn't necessarily disappear with the gaining of wisdom!"

"Always listen to yourself... It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention."

"First with the head, then with the heart."

"When men can be made to hope, then they can be made to win."

"The biggest thing is to protect yourself emotionally and mentally, which should be a daily practice anyway.""

"As far as advice goes, I would definitely say keep your circle small and close. There really is something to making sure that you have a good support group."

"Loving yourself is so important, when you achieve this you’ll be capable of fully loving someone else."

"Teenage bullying in general, I don't even want to say teenage anymore because everyone deals with some sort of bullying, it never ends. That's such a misconception, but bullying in general is so awful. Whether it's online or it's in person or it's your family."

"It's human nature to put people on a pedestal."

"Some of the biggest monsters out there have something in their past that's made them into what they are.I don't think someone is just born into the world being nasty. Usually it's a combination of things. But it's interesting how it affects their life, how it affects everybody else in their life."

"When you hit 30 I think, inevitably, whether you’ve had children or not, I think you re-evaluate your life a little bit."

"I just think with boys they get away with being lads and cowboys and it’s an age-old myth that’s existed for a very long time. And I don’t really know how we fight it or change it."