Quotes & Sayings About Cape Town

Visit Cape Town and history is never far from your grasp. It lingers in the air, a scent on the breezy, an explanation of circumstance that shaped the Rainbow People. Stroll around the old downtown and it's impossible not to be affected by the trials and tribulations of the struggle. But, in many ways, it is the sense of triumph in the face of such adversity that makes the experience all the more poignant. — Tahir Shah

I recently saw a restaurant in the U.S. that boasted of serving authentic African cuisine. Africa is a big place. The distance from Tangier, in Morocco, to Cape Town, in South Africa, is over five times more than the distance from London to Rome. Yet, we don't compare tortellini with Yorkshire pudding. This so-called 'authentic African cuisine' featured dishes from what looked like two or three north African countries. When I looked through the kitchen window, out of curiosity, I saw Asian staff and what appeared to be a Mexican chef. Multiculturalism is a good thing, but — Danielle Hugh

I go for long walks in Newlands Forest in Cape Town, and I go to the Turkish baths on Sunday mornings. — Damon Galgut

It gives him an eerie feeling to sit in London reading about streets - Waalstraat, Buitengracht, Buitencingel - along which he alone, of all the people around him with their heads buried in their books, has walked. But even more than by accounts of old Cape Town is he captivated by stories of ventures into the interior, reconnaissances by ox-wagon into the desert of the Great Karoo, where a traveller could trek for days on end without clapping eyes on a living soul. Zwartberg, Leeuwrivier, Dwyka: it is his country, the country of his heart, that he is reading about. — J.M. Coetzee

I have two curiosity cabinets at home filled with finds from jumble sales, markets and my travels. My favourite piece is a voodoo mask from just outside Cape Town. — Erin O'Connor

I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, 'You know, that's the truth. I wasn't there, and I wasn't a six-foot black girl, but that's the truth.' — Maya Angelou

The Cape Town is considerably increased within the last eight years. Its respectability with regard to strength has kept pace with its other enlargements and rendered it very secure against any attempt which is not made with considerable force. — William Bligh

A waiter at the hotel kept telling me that Cape Town is just like a European city, but it's not like that at all. It doesn't feel safe, and I didn't really go out at night. — Robert Webb

In college, my wife did a study abroad in Nairobi, and I did the exact same program in Cape Town. For me, the experience of being in that other culture really set up a longing. When I'm traveling, things seem really sharp. You learn things ten times faster. — Rosecrans Baldwin

I have a daughter and two grand-daughters and a great grandson in Africa, in Cape Town. — Doris Lessing

I've got two dogs - one's a Jack Russell and she's one year old now, and I've got another dog called Kanga, and I got him from a rescue shelter, and there's nothing I enjoy more than just walking them on the beach in Cape Town. I find that very destressing and very relaxing. — Lewis Pugh

Alecto, have you noticed how downhill this little island is becoming?" Mandy questioned sadly. "All these organic food stores and yoga studios and cellular phone towers ... Cape Breton was one of the only places left where it still had that nostalgic small town atmosphere but now ... I've only been away for a year, how could things have changed so quickly? I mean, how can the world accept it?"
"C'est la vie," said Alecto, looking extremely tired as he stared out the window at the late November maple keys fluttering down from vibrantly red trees lining the streets on either side of the windshield. — Rebecca McNutt

God expects the ANC to rule this country because we are the only organisation which was blessed by pastors when it was formed. It is even blessed in Heaven. That is why we will rule until Jesus comes back. We should not allow anyone to govern our city [Cape Town] when we are ruling the country. — Jacob Zuma

I used to do my Nelson Mandela voice to blag restaurant tables in Cape Town. It rarely worked. Now what a great city that is. — Rory Bremner

Over two days, the remaining superheroic population of the Earth had heeded the call--by ship, teleport, magical portal, elemental transduction...the H-Man, Pangolin the Protector, Glass Tambourine, Omega-Mur, Hammer and Sickle, Jackdaw, the Infinite Wisdom, Doctor Mandragora, Czar and Tzar and Star, Kalamari Karl, Lightening Dancer, Doctor Chlorophyll, Jack Viking, Monomaniac, the Gin Fairy, the Holy Ghanta, the Bandolier, the Nuclear Atom, the Mysterious Flame, Moonstalker, Cataclysm and Inferno, the Skyguard II, Your Imaginary Pal, Dark Storm, the Hate Witch, Psychofire, Rabid, Riot, Fox and Hound, Hydrolad, Captain Fuji, Captain Cape Town, Captain Australia, Captain...Jeannie lost count, one uniform and one costume blurring into another. — Adam Christopher

As Desmond Tutu told me on a recent trip to Cape Town, We are only the light bulbs, Richard, and our job is just to remain screwed in! — Richard Rohr

Question and Answer
Durban, Birmingham,
Cape Town, Alabama,
Johannesburg, Watts,
The earth around
Struggling, fighting,
Dying
for what?
A world to gain.
Groping, hoping,
Waiting
for what?
A world to gain.
Dreams kicked asunder,
Why not go under?
There's a world to gain.
But suppose I don't want it,
Why take it?
To remake it. — Langston Hughes

When I became Archbishop I set myself three goals for my term of office. Two had to deal with the inner workings of our Anglican (Episcopalian) Church - the ordination of women to the priesthood which our Church approved in 1992 and through which our Church has been wonderfully enriched and blessed; and the other in which I failed to get the Church's backing, the division of the large and sprawling Diocese of Cape Town into smaller episcopal pastoral units. The third goal was the liberation of all our people, black and white, and that we achieved in 1994. — Desmond Tutu

It was not possible to film in California, because all the areas are heavily built up now. Coming to Cape Town is an invitation to step into the past and recreate Los Angeles of the 1930s. — Robert Towne

Welcome, praetor!" he said. "You need any giants' faces smashed while you're in town, just let me know." "Thanks, Terminus," Percy said. "I'll keep that in mind." "Yes, good. Your praetor's cape is an inch too low on the left. There - that's better. Where is my assistant? Julia!" The little girl ran out from behind the pedestal. She was wearing a green dress tonight, and her hair was still in pigtails. When she smiled, Percy saw that her front teeth were starting to come in. She held up a box full of party hats. Percy tried to decline, but Julia gave him the big adoring eyes. "Ah, sure," he said. "I'll take the blue crown." She offered Hazel a gold pirate hat. "I'm gonna be Percy Jackson when I grow up," she told Hazel solemnly. Hazel smiled and ruffled her hair. "That's a good thing to be, Julia." "Although," Frank said, picking out a hat shaped like a polar bear's head, "Frank Zhang would be good too." "Frank!" Hazel said. — Rick Riordan

I cannot imagine being happy anywhere else in the world but in Cape Town - South Africa in general, but Cape Town in particular. — Christoffel Wiese

The whites have resolved to destroy our liberty and have therefore brought a force commensurate to their intentions. The Cape, after a proper resistance, has fallen into their hands, but the enemy found only a town and plain in ashes; the forts were blown up, and all was burnt. — Toussaint Louverture

In Cape Town, there's a drive from Cape Point to Camps Bay where the road is hewn out of the cliffs. It's just stunning, particularly if you do it as the sun is going down. — Sean Pertwee

And Cape Town is not what it used to be. Foreigners have left their imprint on our culture. — K. Sello Duiker

Cape Town's beaches are superb and while the water on the Atlantic side is damn cold, it's very pleasant on the other side. Bring your golf clubs if you play - Cape Town has some fabulous golf courses. — Wilbur Smith

Jan van Riebeeck's arrival in Cape Town was the beginning of all South Africa's problems. — Jacob Zuma

what if there was an uncanny moment when all the birds were grounded from Cape Town to Juneau, and everywhere between--all feathers frozen in a universal stutter, so quick as to make a snail of light, and even Stephen Hawking's mind would miss it? — Kristen Henderson

The politics of the Cape Town Metro, which allows an executive Mayoral committee to make secret decisions which affect you, behind closed doors, is wrong! — Mangosuthu Buthelezi

I live in Cape Town but my favourite holiday destination is Hermanus, a little seaside town about a 90-minute drive away, over the pass and down to the sea, on the sunshine coast. It's where I love to escape to with my wife for a weekend every now and again. — Wilbur Smith

Or consider how we citizens of rich countries obtain our oil and minerals. Teodoro Obiang, the dictator of tiny Equatorial Guinea, sells most of his country's oil to American corporations, among them Exxon Mobil, Marathon, and Hess. Although his official salary is a modest $60,000, this ruler of a country of 550,000 people is richer than Queen Elizabeth II. He owns six private jets and a $35 million house in Malibu, as well as other houses in Maryland and Cape Town and a fleet of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys. Most of the people over whom he rules live in extreme poverty, with a life expectancy of forty-nine and an infant mortality of eighty-seven per one thousand (this means that more than one child in twelve dies before its first birthday). — Peter Singer

Altogether, if I had to pick one place to hang out anywhere, from New York to Cape Town and Australia to Hong Kong, a bookstore would be it. — Gloria Steinem

There's only one person in Cape Town who deals with finding the weird,' he says. 'You need to see Jackie Ronin. — Charlie Human

I once sat down on a bench at Cape Town railway station where the notice "Whites Only" was obscured. A few moments later a white man approached and shouted: 'Get off!' It never occurred to him that he was achieving the opposite of his dreams of superiority and had become a living object of contempt, that human beings, when they are human, dare not conduct themselves in such ways. — Bessie Head

Suppressed I Rise" is the true story of a courageous mother from South Africa and her two daughters. It started when Adeline, the granddaughter of missionaries from Germany, met and fell in love with a handsome young teacher, Richard Beck. They were married in the Cape Province of South Africa and would have been able to enjoy a normal life if it hadn't been for the dark clouds of World War II. Their first child Brigitte was born in Cape Town in 1936, just as Germany was ordering its citizens to return to Germany, the Vaterland. Richard Beck obeyed his country's call and returned to Mannheim bringing his family with him. — Hank Bracker

The vision of a blood-washed Africa propelled me to go from Cape Town to Cairo and start Christ for all Nations. — Reinhard Bonnke

Stay down if you know what's good for you." Colin said. He put his foot on the man's neck and applied a little weight.
The man coughed into the dirt. "Who...who are you?"
Who am I?" Colin replied. He had been waiting for this moment. "I'm the the one bogeyman is afraid of. I'm the new face of justice. I'm your worst nightmare."
He crouched down, leaning closer to the man. "You'd better warn the rest of your low-life friends that there's a new hero in town. You and your kind wont be tolerated any longer."
Colin stood up and folded his arms. He wished there was a breeze that would make his cape fly a little. "Who am I? I am Titan."
And that was when one of the other muggers hit Colin across the back of his head with a plank of wood. — Michael Carroll

It is midnight in the hard part of town. The mask is itching like it always does. The ragged end of my cape is soaking in a puddle of something I don't want to guess about. I'm crouched behind a kicked-in aluminum trash can. It stinks of rotted meat and drunkard's piss - and I feel right at home. (from Nothing to Lose) — Steve Vernon