Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

It is any wife's dream to lead a normal life with her family.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

I was married to the ANC. It was the best marriage I ever had.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

The government can become so elitist and concentrate on elitist interests. To help the government, you must constantly hold its attention.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

I wanted to be a doctor at some point, and I was always bringing home strays from school: people who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

When I was born, my mother was very disappointed. She wanted a son. I knew that from a very early age. So I was a tomboy.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

One of the greatest things I fear is letting down my people. I wouldn't live with that type of conscience, of having let down my people after they've been brutalized for so long.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

No one under international copyright law has the right to depict me or my husband without our consent. I have been surprised by the many people, particularly Americans, who are either writing books or going to produce films about the Mandela family without even bothering to consult us.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

The years of imprisonment hardened me... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn't be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life... there is no longer anything I can fear.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

To me, David Astor was a freedom fighter. To me, he wasn't just a journalist; he was a freedom fighter.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

I was so hooked by the fight for freedom that nothing mattered to us so long as we fulfilled the dream of years and years of our people being liberated. I thought normal life would come the day after.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

I wanted to be a doctor at some point, and I was always bringing home strays from school: people who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

I am a living symbol of the white man's fear. I never realized how deeply embedded this fear is until I came to Brandfort.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

The brutality of apartheid drains you of that emotion of fear if you have gone through everything you can be put through in the process of harassment.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

You build dreams, you build castles in the air, and you hope that at least part of that will be realized, even under apartheid.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

I wanted to be a doctor at some point, and I was always bringing home strays from school: people who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

You build dreams, you build castles in the air, and you hope that at least part of that will be realized, even under apartheid.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn't any pain I haven't known.

— Winnie Madikizela-Mandela