My favourite South African author

"I have no conscience, none," she added; "but I would not like to bring a soul into this world. When it sinned and when it suffered something like a dead hand would fall on me --'You did it, you, for your own pleasure you created this thing! See your work!' If it lived to be eighty it would always hang like a millstone round my neck, have the right to demand good from me, and curse me for its sorrow. A parent is only like to God - if his work turns out bad, so much the worse for him; he dare not wash his hands of it. Time and years can never bring the day when you can say to your child: 'Soul, what have I to do with you?'"
(Olivia Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm)