Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

We cannot pretend we do not have problems; we cannot pretend things are not wrong in our country. A lot of things are wrong.

I knew what it is to hate.

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.

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.

The ANC has failed to address the problems of the black majority quickly enough.

They think because they have put my husband on an island that he will be forgotten. They are wrong. The harder they try to silence him, the louder I will become.

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.

I identify... with the ideas that Malcolm X stood for.

I don't say we should have performed miracles, but surely there ought to have been a difference between the apartheid regime and governance of the ANC after 17 years.

It would be a most despicable thing to suggest I would exploit the poor for my own personal gain.

The solution of this country's problems lies in black hands.

I often wonder why I attract so much criticism.

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.

We talk of a rainbow nation - in a country that remains dichotomized between black and white. We must acknowledge that the rainbow, in fact, is still a dream.

The government can become so elitist and concentrate on elitist interests. To help the government, you must constantly hold its attention.

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.

It is any wife's dream to lead a normal life with her family.

In the normal course of things, journalists want their story, and as soon as they are through with it, they pack their cameras and go. That was never the impression that David Astor gave when you were interviewed by him. It was far deeper than that.

To me, David Astor was a freedom fighter. To me, he wasn't just a journalist; he was a freedom fighter.

Mandela did go to prison, and he went in there as a burning revolutionary. But look what came out. Mandela let us down.

I was married to the ANC. It was the best marriage I ever had.

My continent knows more about me than I do myself.

As much as the South African racist regime is prepared to fight to the last man, so are we determined to fight to the bitter end.

We shall liberate our country.

Nelson was locked up on Robben Island, and wives like me had been warned we would bring our husbands home as corpses from that place. But I always believed he would be released. It was my duty to have a home ready for us.