Quotes from John Kani

I'm Dad at home, not John Kani.

Over the years, many young actors have approached me: Vusi Kunene, Sello Maake ka Ncube, and Seputla Sebogodi. They all said, 'Hey Bra John, let's do 'The Island and we want you to direct.' But somehow, my heart was not in it or I was busy with something else, so I'd say, 'ja, ja, we'll do it.'

Someone once asked me what I missed most. I said, 'My youth.' I've never been a boy who could run around, go crazy, do this, try that. There wasn't time for that.

It is a troubled soul that forces the human being to act. It is some kind of gangrene within you, inside of you, that eats your soul, that forces you to save your soul.

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

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

Our job as artists, we believe, is not to make changes in society. We don't have the ability to do that. We reflect life. We are the mirror of the society to look into. Our job is to raise questions, but we have no answers.

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

When I tried to do 'Waiting for Godot, it was such a controversy. I was tired of political theatre. All I wanted to do was 'Godot.' You know what happened? We were told we had messed up and politicised a classic that has nothing to do with S.A.

What does Macbeth want? What does Shakespeare want? What does Othello want? What does James want? What does Arthur Miller want when he wrote? Those things you incorporate and create in the character, and then you step back and you create it. It always must begin with the point of truth within yourself.

And I'm part of the generation of South Africans who feel we're lucky to be alive.

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.

If we'd lived in England or America we'd have told stories abut our lives and nobody would have called it protest theatre. But the reality of South Africa was the arrests and detentions and oppression - we could not escape that, so we decided to take it on.

I had to look at white people as fellow South Africans and fellow partners in building a new South Africa.

In South Africa, it is different. When you are born not even your father knows what is going to happen in your life.

In Australia, I almost became a counsellor. At the end of each performance there would be a queue of sobbing people backstage. They all wanted to explain why they left South Africa.

We haven't got those dreams: 'I wish to become doctor or a lawyer.' Black people in South Africa have been barred in doing anything that would articulate their cause.

Inkaba' is about a feud between two South African families. They have been fighting for years, from one generation to the next. It's like those typical feuds you have in rural KwaZulu-Natal where, after a while, you do not even know why you are fighting.

I write about the human condition, as a South African. I sometimes see South Africa with the spectacles of the past and there will then be a political content in my writing.

Any older actor knows the last great mountain to climb is to play King Lear and now, if I ever play Lear, I will have done the pre-preparation because I had to go into the play and read it over and over again.

When I was asked to write a concept for a telenovela, I didn't underestimate my non-experience in the field.

Everything you do on stage is always a response to something, not the next line.

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

I have been on the Urban Brew board for many years and assisted with the artistic evaluation of the various shows that were pitched to the production company.