One thing we are sure of is there's no one like Nelson Mandela out there. That's too bad for us.
When we shot "Cry Freedom," I wasn't even allowed in South Africa. They told me I could come but I wasn't going to leave. I had heavy death threats at that time. So we shot in Zimbabwe. In 1995, I had the privilege and the honor to meet Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela the same day: I had breakfast with Desmond Tutu and lunch with Nelson Mandela. Then I had the good fortune to have Mr. Mandela actually come to my house in California. here's been a tremendous amount of change.
I used to do my Nelson Mandela voice to blag restaurant tables in Cape Town. It rarely worked. Now what a great city that is.
What we did was to try and exploit that spirit [the idea of giving], which was there even before I approached individual South Africans [to give to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund]. I think we must start from that angle.
I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.
As president, I watched in wonder as Nelson Mandela had the remarkable capacity to forgive his jailers following 26 years of wrongful imprisonment - setting a powerful example of redemption and grace for us all.
The legacy of Mandela is to have brought the country together. . . South Africa can be one of the success stories of the 21st century.
As a younger person you can come in through many, many gateways. It's like some huge Mandela. You can enter into this and get refreshed.
[Nelson] Mandela was very keen not to be understood as an exceptional person.
Think about all the great leaders. Think about Obama. Think about Clinton. Think about Nelson Mandela. Think about all the people that we know who are very successful in business, in politics and religion. What are they? They tell purposeful stories. They move people to action by aiming at the heart.
The same things that we hurray and support in other places, like people like Nelson Mandela, our prisoners were doing the same thing, and they were captured and convicted of the same things. And we should remember them and treat them like the heroes they are.
Unsurprisingly, Nelson Mandela had and still has many detractors.
We don't have politicians with dignity and morals. We never have, not since [Nelson] Mandela and [Mahatma ] Gandhi. It's really rare.
After Versace was murdered, the first person to call me was Mandela.
At the end of our lives, we will not be judged by the highest public office we attained in our lifetime, if that were true the current president (George W. Bush) would hold as much esteem as Franklin Roosevelt in our country, and Nelson Mandela in his. That cannot be the case. Rather, we will each be judged by the mark we've left on others.
It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.
From time to time, you have seminal personalities who really change the way the world sees itself - people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. Warren Buffett is that kind of person in the business world.
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.
In Durban, where I was born and grew up, and all over Africa, Nelson Mandela was a hero! Now he is a hero to the world.
I think even though he [Nelson Mandela] was feted and praised as he was, he always was at pains to say, I'm a human being.