Quotes by South African Authors - Page 2

Before We BeginIs Your Bug A nice clean original car that looks almost like itleft the showroom yesterday?P.S. All work should be carried out in consultation with a reliable workshop manual with regard to torque settings, gaps, procedures, sequences disassembly, reassembly, where to hide the leftover parts, etc. I will accept no responsibility for anything resulting fromyou or anybody else trying anything as described in this document whatsoever – but if it works or you end up with some amusing stories to tell someone else’s grandchildren, please feel free to drop me a line. (No death threats please.)Sincerely,Christina Engela
Christina Engela
Too often people mistake monsters for gods.
Monique Snyman
Not all ‘whites’ are racists. Not all racists are ‘white.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I would be guilty only if I were innocent of working to destroy racism in my country.
Nadine Gordimer
Even if Zuma was to develop the authoritarian impulses of a Mugabe, he would be checked—not least by his own party, which set a continental precedent by ousting Thabo Mbeki in 2007, after it felt he had outstayed his welcome by seeking a third term as party president. The ANC appears to have set itself against that deathtrap of African democracy: the ruler for life.
Mark Gevisser
The bad parts of the statute are not judicially severable, I consider, from the rest of its provisions that deal with imprisonment. Their roots are entangled too tenaciously in the surrounding soil for a clean extraction to be feasible. The conclusion to which I accordingly come is that we are left with no option but to declare those provisions as a whole to be constitutionally invalid on account of their objectionable overbreadth.
John Didcott
If the good is not dependent on the bad and can be separated from it, one gives effect to the good that remains after the separation if it still gives effect to the main objective.
Johann Kriegler
This was his first trip on the Ossifar Distana, his first real splash in life. Look what it got him. Mister Smiff liked anonymity. He kept a low profile, often traveling under assumed names, claiming to be anything from a banker to a (very) successful life insurance salesman. He’d never broken the law, at least not irreparably. He was quite generous, well liked, sponsoring many charities anonymously – which is why it was so surprising to find him floating face down in the private spa in his apartment, murdered. He had been murdered, unless it was a freak shaving accident. Those old razors weren’t called cut-throats for nothing. Yikes.
Christina Engela
If giving to the needy makes me sleep every night, then I will do it everyday.
Gugu Mona
For the gaming fishermen there was the Whatoosie River and its native cocka-snoek, the main game fish of the resident Skegg’s Valley Dynamite Fishing Club. Cocka-snoek were wily and tough and rather too bright for mere fish. You wouldn’t catch much with a rod around here. Many inexperienced visitors would find the bait stolen from their hooks, which punctuated the discovery that their lines had somehow got snagged and tangled irretrievably around some underwater obstruction – sometimes tied together with neat little bows. Often, several direct hits with hand grenades were needed to stun the creatures long enough just to catch them, gut them and fry them, but these former military types had become experts at it. For a modest fee, tours could be arranged via the booking office, which included an overnight stay on the banks of the river where one could drop off to a great night’s sleep after a satisfying meal of cocka-snoek done on an open fire, and the sound the bits of shrapnel made rattling in your stomach.
Christina Engela
If making a difference in someone else’s life makes me sleep every night, then I will do it everyday.
Gugu Mona
The world might not see it or think of it,But you are enough to have someonesacrificed for you.That should tell you that not every hardshipyou go through is permanent,It is just temporary.It's like a starter,You still have the dessert to enjoy.
Nomthandazo Tsembeni
Not everyone who has helped or is helping you wanted or wants to help you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The more civilized people are, the more honorable working hard is to them. As a result, the more civilized we get, the less we live.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The office’ is a cemetery of dreams.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
School programs the schooled to type a CV. Life inspires the unschooled to type a business plan.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If working-hours were natural, then employed men would only get erections between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. … during the week.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We are so used to working that not working is the new hard work.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
12% of employees study further to learn more. 88% of employees study further to earn more.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The garden is an unemployed township-based man's cubicle.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
He who makes $25,000 annually through passive income is more enviable than he who earns $100,000 annually through a salary.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Beaming into the thick of a tree without becoming a lifelong tree hugger was a tricky business. A precision job. Scrooby’s job at the Time Saving Agency was a tough one. Billions of lives depended on him not screwing up. Literally billions and billions. Once, he’d screwed up in only a very small way and people wore those little yellow smiley faces on t-shirts for decades afterwards – and that was just a small screw up. He sighed. Here he sat, in the branches of an apple tree in an apple tree orchard – and without a single apple in sight. Below him, Isaac was waiting to get bonked on the noggin with an apple so that he could fulfill history by toddling off to invent gravity and shape scientific and mathematical principles for generations to come. Only one problem – no apples.
Christina Engela
Leaders can set targets as high as they like, but when followers are not aware of the vision in place; it may just be another futile endeavor.
Gift Gugu Mona
A phone call should be a convenience to the caller, not an inconvenience to the called.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Those who find it hypocritical of others to use, say, a smartphone, to speak ill of capitalism, needs to be reminded that capitalism is an ideology, not a technology.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A church service starts and ends with a prayer. A magazine starts and ends with an advert.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
People who smile while they are alone used to be called insane, until we invented smartphones and social media.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Mykl d’Angelo groaned where he sat slumped in his chair. The irritating noise was unsettling his pet dog lying on his lap. The wickerwork garden chair creaked pleasantly under him and some native Earth birds made pleasant sounds above while the cool wind wafted over him as he lazily …
Christina Engela
These mods made significant improvements to the cars – enough so that I changed my mind (another procedure altogether) every time I thought of selling the damn thing and buying a Toyota. I hope you benefit from this and preserve your ailing finances!Good luck!
Christina Engela
Some days are better than others. The same can be said about people.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
When I look back to where I come from, I realize it's for a good reason that God changed my life.
Gugu Mona
The reason for the peculiar name could be found in the whimsical sense of humor of the early colonists who arrived on Deanna several decades in the past and found very little at all there to laugh at. Obsidian Crows might seem funny at first, unless you just happened to ride over one with your Jeepo five miles out of town and didn’t have a spare tire. Although there was a reasonable expectation of hitting one of these diminutive brutes on the roads, this did not happen nearly as often as you might think.
Christina Engela
Interestingly enough, every time I corner a fanatic with scientific facts which they cannot argue or disprove, they either dismiss me as 'anti-God' and a 'secular humanist' or they start spouting reams of misapplied and irrelevant 'scripture' at me, like good little sheeple and like that will in any way, shape or form prove anything... Which just proves to me that common sense and actual reason doesn't come into it. Only hatred.
Christina Engela
This was true, she knew. Being involved with him gave her the privileged position of knowing him intimately. There were nights when he would wake up sweating, the nightmares returning out of the blue after a peaceful period sometimes weeks long. Growing up in the middle of a fierce civil war could indelibly mark a child. To Mykl, birthdays were always just another year under the belt, where the only reason to celebrate was that you weren’t dead yet. She took his hand, squeezed it tight and led him inside.
Christina Engela
You are strong, tempered like steel in the fire and by the blows of the hammer of life. Nothing will break you again, only make you stronger and more whole. Perfection is the pride of those who have not lived, who know not these things in their arrogance. They remain the same - raw and without form. The hammer never touches them, and they lie on the shelf, gathering dust, slowly tarnishing and fading and crumbling. the blows of the hammer in the fire refine us into bright shining glory for the roles we play in life - until we are one with the anvil, becoming immune to the hammer's little knocks, and smile at it.
Christina Engela
Where would tourism be without a little luxury and a taste of night life? There were several cities on Deanna, all moderate in size, but the largest was the capital, Atro City. For the connoisseur of fast-foods, Albrechts’ famous hotdogs and coldcats were sold fresh from his stall (Albrecht’s Takeaways) on Lupini Square. For the sake of his own mental health he had temporarily removed Hot Stuff Blend from the menu. The city was home to Atro City University, which taught everything from algebra and make-up application to advanced stamp collecting; and it was also home to the planet-famous bounty hunter – Beck the Badfeller. Beck was a legend in his own lifetime. If Deanna had any folklore, then Beck the Badfeller was one of its main features. He was the local version of Robin Hood, the Davy Crockett of Deanna. The Local rumor mill had it he was so good he could find the missing day in a leap year. Once, so the story goes, he even found a missing sock.
Christina Engela
It is infinitely better to transplant a heart than to bury it to be devoured by worms.
Christiaan Barnard
The Doktor was very vond, I mean fond of Vluffy, so he gave him a flame-proof doggie-jacket. It was dull grey, but it had a tartan pattern on it. Vluffy liked his doggie-jacket and wore it all the time. When things went ‘bang’ he could just roll over, dust himself off and quickly scamper off with the doggie jacket flapping on his back. So in short, Vluffy was a very happy little dog who spent a lot of his time hiding under furniture. But the point is that he’d had a lot of time. Much more than those who went (up in smoke) before him.
Christina Engela
Sabotage isolated them from their home, thwarting any hope of outside help. Frantic, unreliable sightings of frightening things – horrible things - led to chaos. The crew, terrified, opted to die fighting and went hunting for their attacker. Kaine’s only regret was that they found it. It killed them all.Systematically.
Christina Engela
Spam is a waste of the receivers’ time, and, a waste of the sender’s optimism.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
This is not your standard “How to restore” your VW Beetle book. It’s also not a workshop manual. Aside from a basic rundown on the differences between various bug models through the years, there is a section on some things you can do to preserve your bug. Mostly however, what I’ve done is reviewed all the things I did to my bugsand put those ideas together as cheap, skillful, cheap, d.i.y, cheap means of enhancing your grocery getter’s performance and handling.
Christina Engela
In a nice little house in Atro City there lived a man called Doktor Gleichstein. He was a kind of scientist, and he was very good at his job, which is why he always worked from home. He looked a little funny because he kept losing his eyebrows. Quantum Physics, is sort of like ordinary Physics, only you tend to spend a lot more time looking for the cat. He worked in the sitting room because he’d blown the garage up once already. Apparently a lot of things happened by accident in Quantum Physics.
Christina Engela
I am against justice … whenever it is carried out by a mob.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
There is one key area in which Zuma has made no attempt at reconciliation whatsoever: criminal justice and security. The ministers of justice, defence, intelligence (now called 'state security' in a throwback to both apartheid and the ANC's old Stalinist past), police and communications are all die-hard Zuma loyalists. Whatever their line functions, they will also play the role they have played so ably to date: keeping Zuma out of court—and making sure the state serves Zuma as it once did Mbeki.
Mark Gevisser
And so it is, that if you believe it you can honestly choose what you want to be. But choose carefully, with your intuition, and have the courage to trust your choice! It is vital that we allow our self the privilege of quite space, for it is there we discover the passion that drives us to our heart's desire, to our destiny.
Braam Malherbe
A misleading perception or false belief is increasingly being perpetuated that the unconscious or the intuitive is all that really matters in any spiritual endeavor, and that the conscious, rational, logical, analytical mind is the mortal enemy of spiritual awareness and soul growth.
Anthon St. Maarten
These days when you kiss a prince you often run the risk of turning him into a frog. But don't let the ogres in shining armor get you down. There is no need for distress - you don't want to be anyone's damsel anyway. Simply remind yourself that you are busy racking up those 'frequent failure points' that will eventually pay for an all expenses paid trip to Mr Right.
Anthon St. Maarten
It did occur to him that perhaps he’d gone to the wrong Academy – the guys in the Space Fleet always had more interesting stories to tell at the spaceport bars. You know, tales about the dude who got vaporized in a plasma accident in the engineering section, or the fella who got turned into a blob of weird space jelly by some alien virus – or the time someone flew a starship into an astor-field at warp four by mistake (they were still trying to find the black box on that one). The Imperial Space Fleet’s recruiting office sure didn’t go around advertising ‘Join up, see the universe, meet interesting aliens and die screaming’, but it was known there were risks involved. It was part of the job after all, and yet somehow, they still got recruits signing up in droves. Yes, indeedy – the stories were far more interesting than his – took a load of ore to Gorda, took a load of mining equipment back to Tordrazil. Took a load of Florpavian Flame-birds to a zoo on Deanna, took a load of machinery to Salus. Picked up and dropped off a few passengers on the way. Still, Florpavian Flame-birds were a risky cargo… and damned tricky to transport – which is probably the only reason he’d had any entertainment at all on the last trip.
Christina Engela
If my journey was so easy, I would have missed out on life's invaluable lessons. From misery I learnt to comfort those in tears, from lack I learnt to give to the needy; from uncertainty I learnt to understand others and from my silence I learnt to speak for the voiceless.
Gugu Mona
I used to think that size does not count, until I realized that most people either find other people’s faeces more disgusting than a bird’s droppings, or they do not find the latter disgusting at all.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
You can only manage to convince a person to admit to being wrong, not ignorant, arrogant, or stupid.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Being the soothsayer of the tribe is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
Anthon St. Maarten
I resent being lied to because a lie doesn't only undermine the value of the truth, but it further denies the liar a fair chance for honesty.
Gugu Mona
Chances are that there are white people who brag about being the first to move out of a suburb that has been intruded by blacks.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I am usually able to tolerate all kinds of victims of indoctrination except those who have been infected with xenophobia, racism, or homophobia.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Captain Harald Biscay rubbed his graying temples, staring deep in thought at the vast star field showing on the large navigation display on the bridge. It had been a pretty rough few days for him. Of all the things he’d seen in his travels through the universe, not many rated worthy of being remembered. Of the few examples of items Captain Biscay rated that highly, when he was a young man, his uncle would often play the bagpipes at strange hours of the night – shortly before being put in a ‘home’. That rated a mention.
Christina Engela
Ex ‘Fleet man?”“He was a full Commander, last I heard, sir.”“Interesting.” Falconer commented. “Get me his specs. If I have to take him aboard my ship, I want to know all about him.” She swallowed. “Yes sir.”Falconer returned his attention to Nordyke.“What’s their location?”“They’re about a week outside the Hermes system, Captain.”“Helm, set a course – best possible speed!”“Um – sir, we’re on conversion drive at the moment.” The helmsman reported.“I know, Linson – d’you think I’m senile?”“No, sir – I…” The young helmsman stammered.“I did say ‘best possible speed’, didn’t I?”“Yes, sir.
Christina Engela
An angry artist tells people what (he thinks) they need to hear. A hungry artist tells people what (he thinks) they want to hear.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To most Americans, a dog is a potential mate. To some Chinese, a dog is potential meat.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We are all born agnostics. Atheism and theism is sold to us.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana