Patricia Grace Quotes

'Nothing wrong with money as long as we remember it's food not God. You eat it, not worship it...' (chapter 13 p94)

The days before my wedding were full and busy ones but more so for my mother than for any of us. It was summer, with the sun skidding day after day across a flawless ice-blue sky, taking with it all moisture from creeks and pastures, draining the hills and gullies to a sleek ivory. It was the nearest we would get to a white Christmas in these parts.

I have a confidence now that I didn’t have in the early days, when I’d sometimes think ‘This is too terrible. I’m never going to be able to do this.’ I never feel like that now. I know there’s always going to be a way, or that you can just chuck something out if it’s too annoying. That’s a solution as well.

I found this to be a way that works for me--placing myself at the centre, keeping characters and ideas close, and from the centre reaching to the outer circles, in any direction, for what I need in order to bring everything together. (chapter 18, p189)

what was the best part of writing. The main thing for me is characters. I don’t really worry about anything else. I don’t think about the storyline too much actually – just the characters and what might happen to them because of who they are and where they are and who they interact with. The settings, the stories, the themes and the voices and everything else, the inter- relationships – all belong to the characters. So if you keep true to those characters and how they might develop because of who they are and who they have around them and, to a degree, what happens to them, then the story will unfold. I’ve learned to have faith that something will come out.

"People are strength too. Care for people and you are cared for, give strength to people and you are strong. It's land and people that are a person's self, and to give to the land and to give to the people is the best taonga of all. Giving is strength. We've always known it..." (The Stories, chapter 28 p176)

I wasn’t a very talkative child and I’m not a greatly talkative adult even, but I do enjoy listening to people, and language and how it’s used. It becomes part of my own store.

It's what I like to do--describe settings and circumstances, create images, and in so doing expose my own emotional responses to time and place. Underlying it, though, is an anxiety, the concern that it could all slip away, or that we could slip away from it; that we who walk the Earth, treading so heavily and selfishly, could be the authors of our own demise. We have to do better. (chapter 27 p297)

...the scars will heal as growth returns, because the forest is there always, coiled in the body of the land. (Roimata, chapter 26 p169)

It was when I first went to school that I found out that I was a Maori girl... I found that being different meant that I could be blamed...

['Reading Readiness'] aligns with the whakatauāki 'A tōna wā ka mōhio.' 'In their own time they will know.' So, whether actual word recognition and textual meaning begins at four, or five, or eight, or later, what does it matter? There's a whole lifetime of reading exploration ahead as long as the interest has been fostered. Building towards that time of readiness, and children being successful in the building, was what mattered. (chapter 17 p180)

The more I look into these matters the more I think that what happened to the baby happened for the same reason that land is taken, or cultural items, or indigenous knowledge. It's a new area of colonisation.

There are reasons we become ill or dispirited. It's what Oriwia was referring to. There's always a cause. Sometimes we bring sickness or punishment upon ourselves through carelessness, distraction, transgression, or failing to dedicate the day or the task. Weak moments may invite wrong forces.
Sometimes sickness is caused by a vengeful person such as Oriwia describes. I have seen those affected by the spite of others become ill, go mad, become lame, turn black, drop dead, die slowly. I have seen their children born with ailments and deformities. (Chapter 25 p198)

I’ve always loved the short story form. Short stories are like little gems that you can keep polishing and polishing in your aim for perfection.

This first part of the story is about two sisters, Ngarua and Maraenohonoho, who quarrelled over a canoe.