"The great end of life is not knowledge but action."

“I can't quite remember the exact moment when I became obsessed with writing a play about the seemingly endless war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I knew that I wanted to somehow tell the stories of the Congolese women caught in the cross-fire.”

Source : "Picking Through the Ruins: How Do We Stop The DRC’s War Against Women" by Lynn Nottage, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 28, 2009.

“Mythology is a subjective truth. Every culture imagines life a certain way.”

“Just as I wonder whether it's going to die, the orchid blossoms and I can't explain why it moves my heart, why such pleasure comes from one small bud on a long spindly stem, one blood red gold flower opening at mid-summer, tiny, perfect in its hour.”

Source : Sam Hamill (2002). “Dumb Luck: Poems”, p.88, BOA Editions, Ltd.

“I have my mother who is an Irish-Italian, and my father who is African, so I have the taste buds of an Italian and the spice of an African.”

“I will never tire from repeating my commitment to ensuring that every Brazilian can have breakfast, lunch and supper every day.”

“She was bedridden falling a fall which broke her hip. X-rays showed that she had cancer of the colon which had already spreed. To my surprise I found her cheerful and free of pain, perhaps because of the small doses of morphine she was being given. She was surrounded by neighbours and friends who congregated at her bedside day and night. In this cosy, noisy, gregarious world of the "all-chinese" sickbed, so different from the stark, sterile solitude of the American hospital room, her life had assumed the astounding quality of a continuous farewell party.”

“Transformation without work and pain, without suffering, without a sense of loss is just an illusion of true change.”

“I'm making a lot of noise as I walk.”