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

The hills did not belong to us any more. At the same time we could not help but remember that land does not belong to people, but that people belong to the land. We could not forget that it was land who, in the beginning, held the secret, who contained our very beginnings within herself. It was land that held the seed and who kept the root hidden for a time when it would be needed. We turned our eyes away from what was happening to the hills and looked to the soil and to the sea. (Roimata, chapter 16 p110)

I was okay about being Māori. I was okay about being brown, because this had been reinforced positively by my parents and their families. But I always had it in the back of mind, these people don't understand. They don't know. Along with that there was often the assumption that I wasn't clean, I wasn't clever, you know. These were the things that hurt me.

my books are a giving — the first act in communication. Once the book is out there I've done my bit. It's gone. Anything that happens to the book after that is out of my hands, and I've consented to that. Whatever way the book is taken up afterwards is all to do with the next stage of the communication. Reading, reviewing, study, dissection, and commentary are all the business and work of other people — they're all part of discussion. It may all be part of promotion and distribution as well. In other words, if the book is well received then that is encouraging to me. I benefit. I put the book out there to be read and discussed — but if I put it out there and it heads for oblivion, so be it.