Athol Fugard > Quotes

“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.”
― Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys

“To know nothing about yourself is to be constantly in danger of nothingness, those voids of non-being over which a man walks the tightrope of his life.”
― Athol Fugard, Tsotsi

“Love is the only energy I’ve ever used as a writer. I’ve never written out of anger, although anger has informed love.”
― Athol Fugard

“As fascinated as I was by words on paper, it was matched by my fascination with words in people's mouths. The spoken word. And that is the world of theatre.”
― Athol Fugard

“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?”
― Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys

“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.”
― Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys

“we're bumping into each other all the time...”
― Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys

“Do you understand me, good people? Do you understand now why it is not as easy as it used to be to sit behind that desk and learn only what Oom Dawie has decided I must know? My head is rebellious. It refuses now to remember when the Dutch landed, and the Huguenots landed, and the British landed. It has already forgotten when the old Union become the proud young Republic. But it does know what happened in Kliptown in 1955, in Sharpville on 21st March, 1960, and in Soweto on the 16th of June 1976. Do you? Better find out because those are dates your children will have to learn one day. We don't need the Zolile classrooms any more. We know now what they really are ... traps which have been carefully set to catch our minds, our souls. No, good people. e have woken up at last.We have found another school ... the streets, the little rooms, the funeral parlours of the location ... anywhere the people meet and whisper names we have been told to forget, the dates of events they try to tell us never happened, and the speeches they try to say were never made. Those are the lessons we are eager and proud to learn, because they are lessons about our history, about our heroes. But the time for whispering them is past. Tomorrow we start shouting.
AMANDLA!”
― Athol Fugard, My Children! My Africa!

“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: [Genuinely moved by Sam's image.] 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: [Deep and sincere admiration of the man.] 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.”
― Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys

“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.”
― Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys

“Be careful, Hally."

"Of what? The truth? I seem to be the only one around here who is prepared to face it.”
― Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys

“Every African soul is either carrying a bundle or in it. What is wrong with this world that it wants to waste you like that ... my children ... my Africa!”
― Athol Fugard, My Children! My Africa!

“Aman cant spend his life with only one thought”
― Athol Fugard

“Come to school! Come to school. Before they kill you all, come to school!
[Silence]
[MR M looks around the empty classroom. He goes to his table, and after composing himself, opens the class register and reads out the names as he did every morning as he did at the start of a new day.]
Johnny Awu, living or dead? Christopher Bandla, living or dead? Zandile Cwati, living or dead? Semphiwe Dambuza ... Ronald Gxasheka ... Noloyiso Mfundweni ... Stephen Gaika ... Zachzriah Javabu ... Thami ... Thami Mbikwana ... [Pause] Living or dead?
How many young souls do I have to present this morning? There are a lot of well-aimed stray bullets flying around on the streets out there. Is that why this silence is so ... heavy?”
― Athol Fugard, My Children! My Africa!

“The clocks are ticking my friends. History has got a strict timetable. If we're not careful we might be remembered as the country who arrived to late.”
― Athol Fugard, My Children! My Africa!

“I don't remember much about what he said because my head was trying to deal with that one word" the future! He kept using it ... " our future" "the country's future", "a wonderful future of peace and prosperity." What does he really mean, I keep asking myself. Why does my heart go hard and tight as a stone when he says it? I look around me in the location at the men and women who went out into that wonderful future before me. What do I see? Happy and contented shareholders in this in this exciting enterprise called the Republic of South Africa? No. I see a generation of tired, defeated men and women crawling back to their miserable little pondoks at the end of a day's work for the white baas or madam. And those are the lucky ones. They've at least got work. Most of them are just sitting around wasting away their lives while they wait helplessly for a miracle to feed their families, a miracle that never comes.”
― Athol Fugard, My Children! My Africa!

“Life is just a plain bloody mess, that's all. And people are fools.”
― Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys

“The only person there was little Sipho Fondini from Standard Six, writing on the wall: "Liberation first, then education." He saw me and called out: "Is the spelling right, Mr M?" And he meant it! The young eyes in that smoke-stained little face were terribly serious. Somewhere else a police van raced past me crowded with children who should have also been at their desks in school. Their hands waving desperately through the bars, their voices called out: "Teacher! Teacher! Help us! Tell our mothers! Tell or fathers!”
― Athol Fugard, My Children! My Africa!

“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.”
― Athol Fugard, Master Harold...and the Boys

“One wishes that pain weren’t the potent alchemical element that it is.”
― Athol Fugard, The Paris Review, Summer 89/111

“Teacher, where will I come to if I start walking that way?" ... and I pointed. He laughed. "Little man," he said, "that way is North. If you start walking that way and just keep on walking, and your legs don't give in, you will see all of Africa! Yes, Africa, little man! You will see the great rivers of the continent: The Vaal, the Zambezi, the Limpopo, the Congo, and then the mighty Nile. You will see the mountains: the Drakensburg, Kilimanjaro, Kenya, and the Ruwenzori. And you will meet all our brothers: the little Pygmies of the forests, the proud Masai, the Watusi ... tallest of the tall, and the Kikuyu standing on one leg like herons in a pond waiting for a frog. " "Has teacher seen all that?" I asked, "No," he said. "Then how does teacher know it's there?" "Because it is all in the books and I have read the books and if you work hard in school, little man, you can do the same without worrying about your legs giving in.”
― Athol Fugard, My Children! My Africa!

“Bullshit, as usual”
― Athol Fugard , Master Harold...and the Boys