Peter Abrahams Quotes

He (Roderiques) was hungry and homeless. So I fed him. He told me something had gone wrong and he had to leave the Roman school. He said he had no people.

Who had given him the scholarship? The Bantu Welfare Trust? No one I asked seemed sure. I put out feelers. The Welfare Trust was only for pure-blooded Africans. And though the Africans might accept me as one of themselves, the whites who administered the trust would not. Those to whom I spoke thought it crazy, but there you are.

The natives did not like locations, and besides, they were all full, so the white man had started townships in the outlying district of Johannesburg in the hope of killing Vrededorp and Malay Camp.

Found that the good things of this present are RESERVED FOR EUROPEANS ONLY

Leah left him and he collapsed in a heap. She looked down and spat. The she raised her heel and brought it down on his face.

That was the heart of it there, where it was almost as light as day. I could see cars and trams clearly. And the outlines of people moving. White people. To the left, and a little towards me, was Malay Camp, an inky black spot in the sea of light. Couldn't see anything there. Dark folk move in darkness: white folk move in light. Well, Malay Camp wouldn’t be a slum if it were as light as the city. Slum is darkness. Dark folk live in darkness.

Dressed in an orange sack. Three holes in the sack allowed for his head and arms to come through. About his waist was a piece of rope that gathered the sack in and made it hang like some monkish garb. He was barefooted.

In the name of civilization, the dignity and worth of the African people has been grossly underrated, their progress retarded and aspirations frustrated, and the whole life undermined. They are compelled to live in appalling conditions of squalor, filth and isolation...

A strange group of people, these, he thought. Nothing tied them down. They seem to believe in nothing. But well, they had given him a bed. She had given it to him. She who was the strangest of them all.

It is not enough to destroy, you must build as well. Build up a stock of faith in your breast in native Zuma, mine boy, who has no social conscience, who cannot read or write and cannot understand his wanting what you want. **Page 69.

All the years of his life had been spent walking through the land; from east to west, then back; from north to south, then back.

Out of your feeling and out of your pain it must come. Others have found it. You can too. But first you must think and not be afraid of your thoughts. And if you have questions and you look around you will find those who will answer them. But first you must know what you are going to fight and why and what you want.

Light is white: dark is black.

If a man loves a woman he loves her. That is all. There is no bad and there is no good. There is only love. The only thing that is bad is if a man loves a woman and she loves him not.

No! I don't want you to touch me.