South African Culture Quotes

My father is a South African actor who danced in broadway musicals for 'Lion King.'

At 15, I was modeling. I had to do my own hair and makeup. I also made my own clothes because I grew up in South Africa, where fashion was six months behind because of the seasons.

Growing up South African, I was comparatively in a world of privilege, especially being the youngest and being figuratively wrapped up in cotton wool by the rest of the family.

The very first role I ever played was as a 17-year old South African girl who dreamed of being a star and left home to meet her mother in the big city so that she could pursue that dream. I left South Africa and met my mother in Vancouver and not long after that was given the opportunity to perform on the stage and have people chant my name.

Blackpool is absolutely huge in Strictly but when you come from South Africa and you have your first impressions and you arrive in Blackpool, well it's different. It's different let's put it that way. But what I'll also say, if you walk into the ballroom it's absolutely spectacular.

We South Africans are also crazy about football, so the World Cup can be nothing but successful.

Lots of people speak Afrikaans. It's not a statement; it's just a language that we use to communicate. It has its own flavour; it's got its own slang. People laugh. People like it. They like us being open.

Working in South Africa and the people in Johannesburg get under your skin. It stays with you. It's a place I want to take my children back to. It's a place that filled me with great joy and inspiration but also sadness. I think it's one of the most complex places on the planet.

South Africa is the most beautiful country I have been to. Canada is also hugely underrated.

I go back to South Africa at least once a year, sometimes twice, and usually for a month. And probably, I'm guessing, I'll spend more time back there as I get older.

When a pile of cups is tottering on the edge of the table and you warn that they will crash to the ground, in South Africa you are blamed when that happens.

Zef is the underbelly of the Afrikaans culture, but it also, like, is Afrikaans culture.

I think, and I don't know if it's because of 'Searching for Sugar Man,' but South Africans seem to not have to go with what's popular but what they like, and that's refreshing.

I am Afrikaans. It wasn't ever something that I thought about.

Learning to write sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life.

FIFA is a vuvuzela. It's in your ear, but you don't want to hear it, and then eventually it goes away.

I was born and raised in Pretoria. Nobody ever really talked about Santa because the whole concept just didn't make sense to us. Think about what South Africa looks like: I mean, we don't even have any chimneys for him to come down!

We filmed 'Labyrinth' in South Africa for two and a half months and it was just the most unbelievable experience. Lots of sword fighting, mud in hair and lots of weeping! It's very different from 'Downton' because I was going to work and having mud put in my hair - it's the other extreme of the look!

There is perhaps no nation on earth…that produces so fine a race of men as the Kaffers.

The problem with being a journalist is you go places and you're working. You don't get to appreciate everything. But I got enough of a sampler of South Africa; I thought, 'I want to come here when I don't have to interview people for a living so that I can really enjoy it.' Because I think it was just a magnificent place.

Tolkien was influenced by South Africa when he was writing 'Lord of the Rings.' It's really epic scenery.

In the early '90s, I was hired to write educational dramas about HIV and AIDS in the shantytowns. I did that for two and a half years, and then I was hired on other films. When 'Tsotsi' presented itself, I thought, 'This is not a world I grew up in, but I've spent a great deal of time writing about it and researching it in my past.'

When I was a kid, pre-1994 was still apartheid, so we didn't get a lot the subversive music from the States or from the U.K. A lot of the music we would get was the poppiest pop music, so I've never really had a bad association it.

My brother and I were brought up sort of thinking that we were English. I remember hearing the poet Roy Campbell on the radio and being quite shocked that he had a South African accent. I didn't know there were any South African poets.

I am no fashion diva - I grew up on the beaches in South Africa and am a nature girl that spends a lot of time outdoors. Fashion speaks to me through an occasion.