Patricia Grace Quotes

Dear Rimini and Benedict,
You didn't deserve ill-humour and rebuff, and I had no right to send you off with empty hearts when all you were asking was to get to know your 'father'.
'Father' is what you said.
You probably think I'm still a bit loony. It's probably true.
After you'd gone I kept thinking about my war notebooks. Everything I could tell you, more than I could ever tell you about your 'father', is contained in them.

there's singing in the mountains, laughter in the trees, dancing in the light of evening fires. There's whispering in hearts and minds and shadows. That's enough for me. (chapter 31 p238)

Salt cures.
Sea washes. It cleans.
Expanse enlivens the spirit, frees the mind.

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)

You and I grew together and we are inside each other's hearts. We don't have to explain. We know. We understand. (Chapter 25 p198)

I'm not sure of the reason for it, but during those days of caring for [her], my thoughts would often return to the time of my childhood when I would hear the old people say that we earthlings are related to the stars. The stars are our flesh and blood. I came to understand that this must be true in the deepest sense. We come from the dust of stars. (chapter 27 p213)

To be well in spirit is the most important health. [She] was the song of that run-down house. She was its roof, its walls, its windows, its doors. She was its song.
To be well in spirit is the most important wellness. To be well in spirit lifts the physical and mental state to an extraordinary level. All are affected by it. Dark thoughts disappear.

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)

When I left teaching, I imagined myself spending every possible minute scribbling, or sitting for hours in front of the computer, and for some months this is what I did. But I soon came to realise that, for me, the writing life needs real life and interaction going on. So, though I did spend time writing every day, often long hours on week days, I found myself caught up in the many activities associated with family and community life as well. (chapter 19, p214)

Who is my audience? My answer to that has to be that I am the first audience. I write for me and I must be the sole judge and take full responsibility for what comes about. The second audience, the one unknown to me, is whoever will read. Once I've finished a book or a story, my job is done. Reviews, analyses, critiques, theses are not written for me. They come after the event. What follows the reading, discussion, dissection, opinion is part of the next life of the book, that is, if it is to have an afterlife. I should say, though, that if Maori readers did not relate to my writing, or if they rejected it, I would not do it. (chapter 18 p200)

['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)

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)

To get back to writing the 'ordinary lives of ordinary people'. This is what I believed I was doing when I wrote Potiki. Land and language issues are part of everyday life for Māori. On the whole, the novel was well received. It has stood its ground and seen its way into the world. But it rocked the boat at the time. It showed Māori in a positive light, living in a functional community and being preyed upon by evil Pākehā wanting to wrest land from them by lying and cheating. It was regarded as political correctness (of which there was no greater sin) gone haywire. It was a 'minor miracle', a snide reference to miracle plays, angels and devils, where good triumphs over evil. But land protests at the Raglan Golf Course in the 1970s and at Bastion Point in 1977 and 1978 brought the nation's attention to what was happening in the ordinary lives of Māori people all over the country-injustices that had been ongoing for decades, and still continue. (chapter 18 p198)

I grew up amid two worlds, having close, continuous and frequent contact with each. These were two different and contrasting spheres that I inhabited, both full of life and vitality: my mother's Pākehā family and my father's Māori whānau. (chapter 2 p18)

Autumn bends the lights of summer and spreads evening skies with reds and golds. These colours are taken up by falling leaves which jiggle at the fingertips of small-handed winds.