Women Authors From New Zealand

"we have spent hours circling each other with words-thinly vowelled embraces"

"this is the one I love.he is not here but the air is still warm from where he might have been"

"So far it has worked by imagining you in all the places I would like you to be"

"How lucky you are, to love and to be loved in return.”"

"I am in love. It just happened, I never sought it, but I couldn't turn away from it"

"Well, Louie, you’ll know then that Leviticus also tells us not to cut our beards, not to wear linen and wool together nor to eat crayfish or frogs or snails. I’m afraid that if we adhered to Leviticus the entire French nation would be an abomination in the eyes of the Lord"

"I’m in love with that girl,” she said out loud in amazement, because she knew that this was a life-changing thing and life-changing things should be said aloud, should have a moment in time, and a place in the air, some molecular structure to make them real. I’m in love with that girl, she heard as it reverberated inside her head. And it was truth, she realised, as things are which you don’t think, but discover have always existed.”"

"I enjoy words that sparkle, whether they be in Māori, my mother tongue, or English. What a privilege it is to inherit and to appreciate a language, and to enjoy another equally."

"Keats is dead so fuck me from behind"

"The past is a bad invention that keeps on happening:"

"It’s like falling in love for the first time for the last time"

"Often I look at the world"

"No colonisation. No genocide. No intergenerational trauma. No two centuries of white privilege."

"Sorry guys, the thing is, when I write a poem I become a werewolf."

"My views become exactly the same as “those expressed in Germany”. What I mean is, I’m the whole of Nazism and the entire Second World War."

"When I write a poem “sexual and racial violence” burst out of me like wolf-fur through the rents in my smooth brown skin. I start howling at the moon and “inciting racial violence” all over the place."

"My daughter locks me in the bathroom and says through the door: Mum, stop that “racist violence dressed up as art”, because, Mum, “poor white people disaffected by the effects of globalism” couldn’t say those things."

"My daughter slumps down outside the bathroom door in tears and whispers: I’m tired of my “acceptable ethnicity”. We brown people have all the privileges now. We can say anything we like and get away with it."

"When I am under a full moon, I start writing a poem about colonisation, which is exactly the same as “inciting murder”. Writing a poem is the same as a “manifesto” justifying terrorism and massacre."

"Now, I’m howling and ripping off my clothes and writing a poem which is “inciting violence” right through the walls of my house."

"The neighbours hear me writing a poem about colonisation and they yell: Stop that “race-baiting”, our kids are trying to sleep."

"Later, my white neighbour will come over to my house and say: Let me explain something to you, Tusiata. “Racism is like a scab on your knee”, and “if you pick it”, what will happen? “Leave it alone and it will heal”, otherwise I fear the “wound will get infected”. And what will happen to me then? Huh? What will happen to me then?"

"When I write a poem it turns into a “hate crime” right then and there. It springs up off the page, and marches out into the street like an army of ten thousand colonial soldiers armed with guns."

"My poem steals my neighbour’s land, and everybody’s land. My poem steals 94 percent of all the land in New Zealand. It steals millions upon millions of acres of land."

"My poem kidnaps children, puts them in state welfare institutions, abuses them and stops them speaking their own language."

"In the space of a few generations, my poem has traumatised the people who originally owned this land and their language almost disappears."

"My poem is no accident. My poem does all these things on purpose. My poem has a plan to take over everyone and everything."

"When I write a poem, my “moral compass is marginal” at best and the consequences of my poem “devastate” innocent people all over the country. Look at my poem, causing the “radicalisation of people” and ruining “social cohesion”."

"Oh no! Here I go again, with my pen and my exercise book, inciting “hate speech” and “dehumanising” people."

"Now, I want you to listen closely because I’m going to tell you something very important: Brown women are so privileged now, we can get away with anything. If I was a “white male I would be taken apart!”."

"That’s honestly how simple it is."

"It is not complex."

"There is truly nothing more to think about."

"Damn this poem! It is making my jaw grow long and shaggy, fangs grow from my mouth and my eyes turn red. Here I go, on all fours now, with a tail growing out from under my skirt like a wild dog. Here I go, writing a “racist rant about one of history’s greatest explorers”."

"When you face tough times but keep on going; when you're discouraged and doubtful, but still show up; when you are not sure of what to do, but you give it you best anyway--you will, in the end, succeed. Just be willing to do whatever it takes."

"the more violent the boy, the more I see that he creates, and when he kicks the others with his big boots, treads on fingers on the mat, hits another over the head with a piece of wood or throws a stone, I put clay in his hands, or chalk. He can create bombs if he likes or draw my house in flame, but it is the creative vent that is widening all the time and the destructive one atrophying, however much it may look to the contrary. And anyway I have always been more afraid of the weapon unspoken than of the one on the blackboard"

"So often I have said in the past, when a war is over, the statesmen should not go into conference one with another, but should turn their attention to the infant rooms, since it is from there that comes peace or war.”"

"You must be true to yourself. Strong enough to be true to yourself. Brave enough to be strong enough to be true to yourself. Wise enough to be brave enough, to be strong enough to shape yourself from what you actually are.”"

"[While she was a model] Someone in the studio noticed me sitting in the background. They asked me whether I would pose for girls' hats, and with some diffidence I consented. My first posing was terribly self-conscious. The photographer liked my type, and employed me steadily that summer. I got $5 an hour and sometimes had five or six sittings in a day."

"[About her early career] I was all right in long shots, but when it came to close-ups, sustained emotion was beyond me. I knew nothing about acting and often wondered why I had not continued with my plan to become a teacher of modern languages."

"I wanted to become a really accomplished actress, but I didn't know how to act, and had no chance to learn. In those days the studios didn't have coaches or drama schools and it was almost impossible to get on the sets to watch the older players. I finally decided there was only one thing to do: go back to New York and try to get into some plays there."

"[About her first marriage] There was nothing tragic about it - it was a case of willfulness."

"[In 1940] Those two and a half years on Broadway were the happiest years of my life. I loved the stage. I think every girl who wants to become an actress should put in some years on the stage."

"[on director George Stevens] George Stevens started out as a cameraman with Laurel and Hardy, and he learned so many wonderful tricks, like having us walk forward while looking backward and then bumping into something. George was a darling man, so great with comedy. It's too bad he got serious."

"[1977 comment on Gary Cooper] I loved working with Gary Cooper. Gary was my favorite. He was so terrific-looking, and so easy to work with."

"[on making Only Angels Have Wings (1939)] I loved sinking my head into Cary Grant's chest."

"[on her first marriage, which only lasted a day] Julian [Julian Anker] looked a lot like Abraham Lincoln, and that's probably why I fell in love with him. One day we were out driving and he suddenly said, "Hey, why don't we get married?" So we lied about our ages and got married in a sheriff's office. You should have heard our families' reactions - all sorts of screaming and shouting and carrying on about suicide. Well, neither Julian nor I had enough income to make it possible for us to live together, so our marriage lasted one day."

"[on her early acting days] My very "naturalness" was my undoing. I had to learn that to appear natural on the screen requires a vast amount of training, that is the test of an actor's art. It would be more spectacular if I could say that out of the hurt and humiliation of that failure was born a determination to success, to prove I had the makings of an actress. But it wouldn't be true. That urge came later."

"[speaking in in the 1930s] I've never had a single close intimate girlfriend in all my life. I never had a chum to whom I could confide my secrets. I suppose that accounts for the fact that now it is so painfully difficult for me to open my heart and confide in people who are, so often, almost strangers. You have to learn so very young to open your heart."

"It's hardly fair for women to do the same things at the same hours every day of their lives, while men have new experiences, meet new people every day. I felt that way as a little girl, with two older brothers around the house. It seemed to me that they led adventurous lives, compared with mine. I felt cheated and frustrated. I became a tomboy in self-defense. I decided that I was going to do things that were exciting, or at least interesting."