Miriam Makeba Quotes

We live in a society where there is no law in making money in the promulgation of ignorance or, in some cases, stupidity. There are a lot of things you can say never happened. You can go as relatively quasi-harmless as saying no one went to the moon. But you also can say that the Holocaust never happened.

We have been exceedingly busy ever since you went away. In the first place we have had to rejoice two or three times everyday at your having such very delightful weather for the whole of your journey...

Let's go for a drive OK? Well I'll go for a drive, you'll go for a ride. The person who drives the car they go for a drive, the other people they go for a ride. People don't know that, tell them when they're in your car. Say "you assholes are goin' for a ride!

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it, but fear I must.

I'm out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin' a road other men have gone down
I'm seein' your world of people and things
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings

[Belafonte]'d take me to perform for Martin Luther King's cause. But when they were marching I did not take part, because I was not a citizen

You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

I think we need some new Christmas carols with a more modern approach. Of course, I wouldn't abandon the religious theme completely. How about "Holy Christ, the Christmas Tree's on Fire"? Or "Jesus, Can You Believe It's Christmas Again?" This ought to get the ball rolling; I'm hoping you people will take it from here.

When people show you who they are, believe them, the first time. Not the 29th time!

The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.

Hannah: Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

We are never ever ever... getting back together.
We are never ever ever... getting back together.
You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me.
But we are never ever ever ever... getting back together.
Like, ever.

I'm not a political singer. I don't know what the word means. People think I consciously decided to tell the world what was happening in South Africa. No! I was singing about my life, and in South Africa we always sang about what was happening to us — especially the things that hurt us.

I’ve been through hell and back, and I’m grateful for every scar, I look at the woman I was in my 20s and I see a young lady growing into confidence but intent on pleasing everyone around her. I now feel so much more beautiful, so much sexier, so much more interesting. And so much more powerful.

But look — he flicks his hand to the back of his neck. For such gesture one falls hopelessly in love for a lifetime.

I shall never be able to have any more of these boyish, zestful affairs — which are, really, when one thinks about it, a kind of higher, or, anyway, more pretentious masturbation. People are too various to be treated so lightly.