All Quotes by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
“It is any wife's dream to lead a normal life with her family.”
“I was married to the ANC. It was the best marriage I ever had.”
“The government can become so elitist and concentrate on elitist interests. To help the government, you must constantly hold its attention.”
“I wanted to be a doctor at some point, and I was always bringing home strays from school: people who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too.”
“When I was born, my mother was very disappointed. She wanted a son. I knew that from a very early age. So I was a tomboy.”
“One of the greatest things I fear is letting down my people. I wouldn't live with that type of conscience, of having let down my people after they've been brutalized for so long.”
“No one under international copyright law has the right to depict me or my husband without our consent. I have been surprised by the many people, particularly Americans, who are either writing books or going to produce films about the Mandela family without even bothering to consult us.”
“The years of imprisonment hardened me... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn't be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life... there is no longer anything I can fear.”
“To me, David Astor was a freedom fighter. To me, he wasn't just a journalist; he was a freedom fighter.”
“I was so hooked by the fight for freedom that nothing mattered to us so long as we fulfilled the dream of years and years of our people being liberated. I thought normal life would come the day after.”
“I wanted to be a doctor at some point, and I was always bringing home strays from school: people who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too.”
“I am a living symbol of the white man's fear. I never realized how deeply embedded this fear is until I came to Brandfort.”
“This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family.”
“The brutality of apartheid drains you of that emotion of fear if you have gone through everything you can be put through in the process of harassment.”
“You build dreams, you build castles in the air, and you hope that at least part of that will be realized, even under apartheid.”
“I wanted to be a doctor at some point, and I was always bringing home strays from school: people who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too.”
“You build dreams, you build castles in the air, and you hope that at least part of that will be realized, even under apartheid.”
“There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn't any pain I haven't known.”