Mandela Quotes

Before Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was an angry, relatively young man. He founded the ANC's military wing. When he was released, he surprised everyone because he was talking about reconciliation and forgiveness and not about revenge.

Just look at the great Nelson Mandela. He came out of prison and saved his entire country. Some of the best people in the world have spent time in prison.

Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.

Mandela once phoned me out of the blue while he was still president, and at first he played with me a bit.

This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.

Nelson Mandela is, for me, the single statesman in the world. The single statesman, in that literal sense, who is not solving all his problems with guns. It's truly unbelievable.

After Versace was murdered, the first person to call me was Mandela.

Like you do about Nelson Mandela, you can't help feeling the guy's a good man.

Movies, TV, sports, come and go, but what you stand for is what people remember. Mandela, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy are people who really stood for something and were willing to die for it. You don't see a whole lot of that any more.

It's a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela.

As far as those kinds of things, I also played at the concert to call for the release of Nelson Mandela when he was a political prisoner in South Africa. We were celebrating his 70th birthday and calling for his release.

One of them would definitely be the Nelson Mandela gig, when I played the tribute song for him. He was up and dancing, and he really enjoyed it. It was a really lovely occasion.

This sympathy is not translated into force against the British government because it is not like the anti- apartheid movement which had a high profile here and Mandela is a more engaging figure than Yasser Arafat.