New Zealand Author Quotes

Katherine Mansfield

Hugh Walpole

Janet Frame

Ngaio Marsh

Eleanor Catton

Margaret Mahy

Witi Ihimaera

'Jolly good! Super!' He occasionally adopted the mannerisms of an effusive scout-master.

Give me, give me God's own country! there to live and there to die,

But loss is a precious stone to me, a nectar Distilled in time, preaching the truth of winter To the fallen heart that does not cease to fall.

James K. Baxter

Simply by sailing in a new direction
You could enlarge the world.

Somehow we manage it: to like our friends, to tolerate not only their little ways but their huge neuroses, their monumental oddness: "Oh well," we smile, "it's one of his funny days."

It's just as possible to live to the full in a narrow corner as it is in bigness.

Sylvia Ashton-Warner

"You know, Mouse," [Tabby] said, "a brilliant cat like me should have smart friends; people who can count to more than four." "I can count to more than four," answered Mouse, very offended. "And I can do hard sums, and I know geography and history, and I can knit and..."

The thought of flight has melted me, I am less solid than liquid, then I'm going up and going invisible like steam.

Alas, being a New Zealander is such an exquisite dilemma.

Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime.

Through poverty, godhunger, the family debacle, I kept a sense of worth. I could limn and paint like no-one else in this human-wounded land: I was worth the while of living. Now my skill is dead. I should be.

The happiest people I have known in this world have been the Saints-and, after these, the men and women who get immediate and conscious enjoyment from little things.

People can say what they like about the eternal verities, love and truth and so on, but nothing's as eternal as the dishes.

The proper way to understand any social system was to view it from above.

In all experience, there is something to be learned. In deepest sorrow, wisdom is found. In the well of despair, hope rises.

Juliet Marillier

It can postpone death, cure disease, release the captive, bring sight to the blind, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, destroy the despot, win the love of women, and procure all reasonable earthly happiness to any man who is not entirely too old. In course of time perhaps it may even resurrect the dead, create life and storm the very gates of heaven, for money is force and force is the essence of the universe.

It is astonishing how violently a big branch shakes when a silly little bird has left it. I expect the bird knows it and feels immensely arrogant.

Katherine Mansfield