On Forgiveness
"I couldn't have done it without two people, both in Africa," he says. "One was a Rwandan woman, a survivor of the slaughter. She lived next to a Hutu couple. Their children played together for 10 years. The couple rat 'em out. They come and crack her across the back with a machete and she's left for dead. She wakes up in a pool of blood and looks around and her husband and her six children are dead. She's the only survivor. And she said, 'I screamed at God for letting me live with all them dead and then I realised I must have been spared for some purpose. It could not be something as mean as vengeance.'

"What was the lesson for me? What I went through was a tea party compared to that woman. I lost nothing compared to what she did. You know, I had my reputation in tatters, I was bankrupted, I was enraged because other people were persecuted who were completely innocent. It was nothing.

"The other person who helped me was Nelson Mandela. He told me he forgave his oppressors because if he didn't they would have destroyed him. He said: 'You know, they already took everything. They took the best years of my life, I didn't get to see my children grow up. They destroyed my marriage. They abused me physically and mentally. They could take everything except my mind and heart. Those things I would have to give away and I decided not to give them away.'

"And then he said: 'Neither should you.' And he said when he was finally set free he felt all that anger welling up again and he said, 'They've already had me for 27 years ... I had to let it go'. You do this not for other people but for yourself. If you don't let go it continues to eat at you."
Guardian