Mongane Wally Serote Quotes

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it, but fear I must.

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.

I'm out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin' a road other men have gone down
I'm seein' your world of people and things
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings

Schultz: You must speak.
Jewish barber: I can't.
Schultz: It's our only hope.

For this too is a very pleasant strand woven into the Cynic's pattern of life; he must needs be flogged like an ass, and while he is being flogged he must love the men who flog him, as though he were the father or brother of them all.

Her voice makes you stop the car and peer skywards in wonder.

Her voice and her battles influenced the process of liberation and democratic rebirth in South Africa.

Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of silence.

I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.

The Third World deserves freedom of speech just like everyone else. We want to fight the battle to say what we want, whether to be serious or just make fun of ourselves. That's what "Worldtown" is about, that's what "Paper Planes" is about. It's what people in the third world live through.

How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?

We must not contradict, but instruct him that contradicts us; for a madman is not cured by another running mad also.

It is a kind of law of nature. The goal one aims for can rarely be reached by a direct road.

The virtuous who are prosperous must be exalted, and the virtuous who are not prosperous must be exalted too.

In "Mystery Train" (1955), he rocks out with an astounding depth, Elvis' voice never sounding so rich, nor so pleading; best of all is his final spontaneous laugh & whoop of excitement, worth its weight in gold.