Ryszard Kapuscinski

“In order to feel contempt, you generally need to cherish some kind of feelings.”

“The Cold War in Africa is one of the darkest, most disgraceful pages in contemporary history, and everybody ought to be ashamed.”

“In modern Russia, you have no official, formal assessment of this past. Nobody in any Russian document has said that the policy of the Soviet government was criminal, that it was terrible. No one has ever said this.”

“Our salvation is in striving to achieve what we know we'll never achieve.”

“In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.”

“I remember in 1978 meeting two Ugandan captains in the hotel talking Russian. They had been educated in Moscow and since they came from different Ugandan peoples, it was the only way they could understand one another.”

“In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated.”

“Amin managed to invite both the US and Soviet ambassadors to his palace at the very same time and then deliberately kept them together in his waiting room.”

“I remember that during the period leading up to independence in Angola in 1975, I was the only correspondent there at all for three months.”

“There is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.”

“My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration. The second is reading literature on the subject. The third is reflection.”

“Do not be misled by the fact that you are at liberty and relatively free; that for the moment you are not under lock and key: you have simply been granted a reprieve.”

“Readership was high, and very attentive. It was people's only source of knowledge about the world.”

“The official independence celebration was going to be held over four or five days, and a group of journalists from all over the world was allowed to fly in, because Angola was closed otherwise.”

“Amin knew that neither West nor East would criticize him for fear that he would support the other side. He felt he was untouchable and he said so openly.”

“We have such a mixture now, such a fusion of different genres.”

“The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.”

“Most correspondents came from the former colonial powers - there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians.”

“Money changes all the iron rules into rubber bands.”

“When man meets an obstacle he can't destroy, he destroys himself.”