Miriam Makeba Quotes

Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way so you won't get run over.

That was the only time my mother saw me on stage. At one point in the play I am strangled and my mother jumped from her seat and screamed: 'No. You will not get away with murder. You cannot do this to my daughter.

Nobody will know the pain of exile until you are in exile.

The man at the desk took my passport. He did not speak to me. He took a rubber stamp and slammed it down. Then he walked away. I picked up my passport. It was stamped 'Invalid'. 'They have done it,' I told myself. 'They have exiled me. I am not permitted to go home — not now, maybe not ever.

My concerts were canceled left and right. Speaking about South African Apartheid was fine, but they were suddenly afraid I might speak about American Apartheid, although I never did.