12 Quotes & Sayings By Athol Fugard

Athol Fugard was born in 1950 in Grahamstown, South Africa. He studied at the University of Cape Town and worked as a teacher before becoming a full-time playwright in 1979. In 1989, he moved to the United States to take up a place at Yale University. Since then he has taught extensively at Yale, Columbia University and the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University Read more

He was awarded the Order of Mapungubwe by President Nelson Mandela in 1995. In 1995 his play Boesman and Lena was made into a film directed by Jonathan Demme and starred Richard Gere. Fugard won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work which "in a distinguished and highly personal style, explores a wide range of human relationships in a universal language of emotion and symbol." He is also a recipient of both the Man Booker International Prize and the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters.

Love is the only energy I’ve ever used as a...
1
Love is the only energy I’ve ever used as a writer. I’ve never written out of anger, although anger has informed love. Athol Fugard
2
Yes! That's what all our talk about a decent world has been... just so much bullshit."" We did say it was still only a dream."" And a bloody useless one at that. Life's a fuck-up and it's never going to change. Athol Fugard
3
Anybody who thinks there's nothing wrong with this world needs to have his head examined. Just when things are going all right, without fail someone or something will come along and spoil everything. Somebody should write that down as a fundamental law of the Universe. The principle of perpetual disappointment. If there is a God who created this world, he should scrap it and try again. Athol Fugard
4
Be careful, Hally.""Of what? The truth? I seem to be the only one around here who is prepared to face it. Athol Fugard
5
Those are big collisions, Hally. They make for a lot of bruises. People get hurt in all that bumping, and we're sick and tired of it now. It's been going on for too long. Are we never going to get it right?... Learn to dance life like champions instead of always being just a bunch of beginners at it? Athol Fugard
6
It's just that life felt the right size in there... not too big and not too small. Wasn't so hard to work up a bit of courage. It's got so bloody complicated since then. Athol Fugard
7
Without white South Africa realizing what it had done - and on the basis of that realization having the courage to ask for forgiveness - there can really be no significant movement. Athol Fugard
8
There are times in my 30 years in the theater that I have come perilously close to losing faith in the one form of action I have in this life. Athol Fugard
9
You can't legislate into existence an act of forgiveness and a true confession; those are mysteries of the human heart, and they occur between one individual and another individual, not a panel of judges sitting asking questions, trying to test your truth. Athol Fugard
10
Nobody can take what I love away from me. I would like to believe that love is the only energy I've ever used as a writer. I've never written out of anger, although anger has informed love. Athol Fugard
11
Night-time is when I brainstorm; last thing, when the family's asleep and I'm alone, I think about the next day's writing and plan a strategy for my assault on the blank page. Athol Fugard