John Kani

“We have to depoliticise our youth. We have to teach our youth that the word 'government' means them, it's something to feel pride in, not something to attack.”

“In South Africa, we've been watching these movies all our lives - 'Batman,' 'Superman,' 'Captain America' - and every time the mask comes off it's a white man.”

“Working with my friend Sir Antony Sher is truly one of the highlights of my career as an artist.”

“That's the beauty of art: art is universal.”

“When I first encountered Shakespeare as a boy, I read every word this man has written. To me, he is like an African storyteller.”

“Theatre has had a very important role in changing South Africa. There was a time when all other channels of expression were closed that we were able to break the conspiracy of silence, to educate people inside South Africa and the outside world. We became the illegal newspaper.”

“'Sizwe' is the beginning of protest theatre; 'Nothing But The Truth' is post-apartheid South Africa.”

“Before 1994, many South Africans used theater as a voice of protest against the government. But with the end of apartheid, like the artists who watched the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe, theater had to find new voices and search for new issues.”

“The exchange rate of the Rand against the dollar, pound or euro makes South Africa an attractive location. The positive side of this is it gives our artists and technicians an opportunity to work.”

“It dawned on me that theatre is a powerful weapon for change.”

“It is ridiculous to think we can erase racism in South Africa, but through theater there can be a genuine attempt to move on with our lives and build a better country.”

“I am known for always playing virtuous characters.”

“The only reference in my life is my life, and it's my life experience. It's my environment. It's my community. I've not made that for books.”

“When I tell a story, I have to tell it honestly.”

“Apartheid is a lie, people can work together, people can create together.”

“All over the world, there is someone sitting in a cell because he or she is not allowed freedom of expression.”

“Seventy is beautiful for me. I am truly, at last, an elder.”

“My grandfather told me our history through his stories about all the great Zulu battles.”

“I was 51 when I voted for the first time in 1994, and I look at South Africa through those spectacles.”

“'Captain Marvel,' whereby the steel trap is challenged, where the hero is a heroine, where the most powerful person who has the welfare of the future of the human race is a woman. What else can it be? Because that was the role of my mother when I was a kid.”