h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the coolest quotations I've yet found:

"I do not discuss poetry with a layman".

Now for the context:

This was said in 1967, during High Apartheid. Breyten Breytenbach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breyten_Breytenbach , one of our best poets ever, was a critic of Apartheid from the outset of his writing career. He left the country in the mid-sixties, married a French-Vietnamese woman, and then was not allowed to return because she was non-white and marriage or sexual relations between people of different races was against the law here.

But he kept writing and kept producing outstanding poetry in Afrikaans. His poetry was however very zen-like and difficult to make sense of. He also swore and spoke freely of sex in his poetry. And he kept on criticizing and ridiculing Apartheid and attitudes of the Afrikaners. But not many people realized that he was doing this out of love and commitment to his own people and country.

In the mid-sixties also censorship was starting to become strong. In the forties and fifties hardly any Afrikaners dreamt of criticising Apartheid or the government, but in the sixties there was a sort of opening of the eyes to the bad consequences, and criticism started. There was also a more liberal spirit about cultural matters. Not only Breytenbach but many other writers started writing from a more liberal perspective, and this the government didn't like, so the censors started cracking down.

Also remember that up till then, government leaders were seen as almost untouchable authority figures.

Our then prime minister John Vorster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:B._J._Vorster.jpg especially liked to throw his weight around to intrude into the arts, telling writers, publishers, broadcasters et cetera that he disapproved of various sorts of material. And so when Breyten Breytenbach was awarded the CNA Prize for Literature, he took it up with D. J. Opperman and protested against it.

D. J. Opperman http://www.pmbhistory.co.za/portal/witnesshistory/UserFiles/SysDocs/bb_content/146/Afrikaans%20authors%20of%20Pietermaritzburg_Page_2.jpg at that point was our foremost poet and very influential with the entire body of Afrikaans writers. He was not banned or banished yet, and considered 'upstanding' and respected, which is why John Vorster spoke with him about it, about Breytenbach being an undesirable and his writing subversive drivel. I can almost see his scowling face as he fulminated on and on about it.

I would have liked to see his face when Opperman hit him with that retort.