"Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books."

i've started dogearing the books i read, and writing down my favorite lines. these are some of the bits i liked most...

A little further on we saw women chatting in little groups and children playing: we were excited to be approaching civilian life, the first we had seen in all the months since our imprisonment. As we trooped quietly past, the children started shouting at us: 'Kaffirs…coolies', and some even began to throw stones. One little boy of about five was standing on a small platform build in his yard, pointing a home-made toy rifle at us and yelling in his little voice: 'Kaffirs, ed skiet julle kaffirs, I'm shooting you.' (59)

Today it is cliché to talk about the lack of bitterness on the part of former political prisoners and freedom fighters. Within South Africa and abroad there is unanimity that there is no single that the ANC has undertaken since its unbanning that is regarded as having been motivated by revenge or hatred. -- Mac Maharaj(xi)

Next, we were taken to the stores where each of us was given a wooden spoon, a cake of blue soap, and a scrap of towel. African prisoners were given a cloth cap and sandals while the rest of us got a felt had and a pair of shoes. A pair of shoes? They were shoes, but not a pair, chosen completely at random. normally I wore a size seven, but in my hand I had a left size nine and a right size eleven. If it had not been so humiliating I would have laughed, it was like a comedy; but I was supposed to wear them, and I felt like weeping. (56)