Waris Dirie Quotes

Before adolescence, memory is more interested in the future than the past...

African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West.

Nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.

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

Much has been written of love turning to hatred, of the heart growing cold with the death of love. It is a remarkable process. It is far more terrible than anything I have ever read about it, more terrible than anything I will ever be able to say.

Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it.

I look at an ant and see myself: a native South African, endowed with a strength much greater than my size, so I might cope with the weight of racism that crushes my spirit.

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 must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.

Move from apathy to action. Aim at becoming better than me. Luck will favour those who are prepared

I was born in a poor country. I was poor, but I lived all my life with what I had. I didn’t spend more than I had. Cape Verde is not the only place where there are poor people

Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being’s suffering. Nothing — not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we’re going to survive with dignity.

But people can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.

One ought not to be unkind to a woman merely on account of her plainness, any more than one had a right to take liberties with her merely because she was handsome.

Don't gain the world and lose your soul
Wisdom is better than silver and gold.

Fewer people are bent from hard work than are crooked from avoiding it.