Suzman Quotes

#1. Playing Isabella in 'Measure for Measure' pushed me to my limits. Janet Suzman was directing, and she was very hard on me. I went through phases of not liking her at the time, but I loved her for it in the end.

Michelle Dockery

#2. Sometimes I manage to get conditions alleviated, often not.

Helen Suzman

#3. But I think the possibility of a black and white society feeding each other's expertises, living harmoniously, will probably go along in fits and starts now but at least it has a great constitution now to back it up.

Janet Suzman

#4. One tries to be an observer as an actor and indeed as a director because the small things, the give-away things are what are really interesting to a performer.

Janet Suzman

#5. I used to be a fan of proportional representation, but I am not at all now I have seen it in action.

Helen Suzman

#6. That's my life in there. It would never be possible today to ask as many questions as I did.

Helen Suzman

#7. I mean one of the basic rules when you're acting is that you mustn't stand in judgement on a character, you mustn't say Hitler was a bad man because you can't act in that way.

Janet Suzman

#8. But I think theatre in a repressive society is an immensely exciting event and theatre in a luxurious old, affluent old society like ours is an entertaining event.

Janet Suzman

#9. This country is armed to the teeth, and none of these African states could begin to attack South Africa.

Helen Suzman

#10. I find its attention to living this life rather than the next one exhilarating because I think even independently of Judaism that that's the right way to go about life.

Janet Suzman

#11. But now I've got a young son and his interest is in science and now when I talk to him, I see that in the science sphere of our lives there is new, there is progress.

Janet Suzman

#12. I suppose meeting people whether it's in real life and actually shaking their flesh and blood hand or shaking the mystical hand of the character all rub off on you in some way.

Janet Suzman

#13. [To the South African parliament:] I do not know why we equate - and with the examples before us - a white skin with civilization.

Helen Suzman

#14. So we do have our exits and our entrances and we are perhaps mere, but I think if one keep a certain joyousness in life which should be in playing, then good for one, but it's slightly more serious than that.

Janet Suzman

#15. I represent all the enlightened people in this country, and that's a fine thing to be able to do. It infuriates my opponents when I say this, but it is true.

Helen Suzman

#16. The immediate present belongs to the extremists, but the future belongs to the moderates.

Helen Suzman

#17. I think it's a very central tenet to it yes, it is. I can't bear it, I can't bear inequality, I can't bear bad behaviour to other people. I cannot bear it that people are mean to people who can't help what they are.

Janet Suzman

#18. Now that we have a democracy and you can go back and the airport air is not laden with evil any more, you can actually breathe oxygen when you land in Johannesburg.

Janet Suzman

#19. When you teach, you learn." "And I really don't go for religions of any kind ... I reject them all ... There were principles I thought were very important ...

Helen Suzman

#20. You learn from mistakes, but Shakespeare is one big non mistake isn't he? He just got everything right really.

Janet Suzman

#21. Tool of Communist agitators ... it's really a joke, isn't it? Because, quite clearly, we are a party of real moderates. It just shows how little they understand.

Helen Suzman

#22. It was but then, when you're, one of the great poisonous events that have infected us all who were in South Africa is that the idea of difference is drip fed into your veins. It's that that you fight.

Janet Suzman

#23. All these stories are grist to the mill of the government because they build up a very useful war psychosis.

Helen Suzman

#24. My own electorate, which I represented for 36 years as an anti-apartheid politician, had a considerable number of Jewish voters supporting me throughout my career.

Helen Suzman

#25. Always you find that the more decisive event wins so my father's sort of annual decisiveness which came upon him on the Day of Atonement every year, he suddenly remembered that he was Jewish.

Janet Suzman

#26. I still find that a kind of stricture of the heart happens when I see any form of bigoted or racist behaviour. I get an actual pain in my heart.

Janet Suzman

#27. I don't think we will ever go the way of Zimbabwe, but people are concerned.

Helen Suzman

#28. My mother was very agnostic. She would never set foot in the synagogue, she couldn't be doing with it.

Janet Suzman

#29. Perhaps the one comforting thought I got out of this whole disgusting affair was that over the years when the government was tapping my telephone, it must certainly have heard some home truths from me about themselves, often couched in good Anglo-Saxon terms.

Helen Suzman

#30. It is the answers, not the questions, that are embarrassing.

Helen Suzman

#31. I can say unequivocally that the boycott does not work. It's never complete enough to have impact unless it's backed by force, and I don't think anybody in America seriously proposes that.

Helen Suzman

#32. OK, well maybe I have to get back to Judaism. In the sense that if I look at me and my forebears forever stretching back to I don't know, whenever there's no sense of place and therefore no sense of nationality.

Janet Suzman

#33. Jews have had to carry around their own sense of self in a carpet bag and I think perhaps too much emphasis might be being put on nationality and on the other hand patriotism, that sort of thing.

Janet Suzman

#34. I am provocative, and I admit this. It isn't as if I'm only on the receiving end, a poor, frail little creature. I can be thoroughly nasty when I get going, and I don't pull my punches.

Helen Suzman

#35. This is always a pain because it's injustice too and so my response to it, I tell you what I am more surprised or horrified at Jews who forget to be humanists than I am at anybody else.

Janet Suzman

#36. It is increasingly hard for young white people to find jobs, and I can understand why white parents are worried about the future.

Helen Suzman

#37. For all my criticisms of the current system, it doesn't mean that I would like to return to the old one.

Helen Suzman

#38. I am hopeful about any future for whites in this country, but not entirely optimistic.

Helen Suzman

#39. The employment laws are completely unrealistic. You cannot overcome that in only 10 years. It will take at least another generation before young people are properly qualified.

Helen Suzman

#40. And I think that that emphasis on keeping a family together, alike, I think it's important.

Janet Suzman

#41. Debate is almost non-existent and no one is apparently accountable to anybody apart from their political party bosses. It is bad news for democracy in this country.

Helen Suzman

#42. I stand for simple justice, equal opportunity and human rights. The indispensable elements in a democratic society - and well worth fighting for.

Helen Suzman