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Quotes by New-zealander Authors
"The world is full of novels in which characters simply say and do. There are certainly legitimate genres in which this is sufficient. But in real and lasting writing the character is."
"From the first place of liquid darkness, within the second place of air and light, I set down the following record with its mixture of fact and truths and memories of truths and its direction toward the Third Place, where the starting point is myth."
"We in the west are seen as godless, as greedy and as uncaring about the suffering of those in the developing world."
"The Platform for Action gives due emphasis to the fact that women globally have continued to have insufficient access to the resources necessary to achieve economic independence."
"In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last."
"New Zealand's taken some very significant decisions in relation to defence in the last two years."
"It took me a long time, but I don't feel as anxious about stupid things anymore - or perhaps they've just been replaced by more complicated stupid things."
"At the same time, I think books create a sort of network in the reader's mind, with one book reinforcing another. Some books form relationships. Other books stand in opposition. No two writers or readers have the same pattern of interaction."
"I want to be all that I am capable of becoming."
"I had to wait for a long time before I could support myself with writing. However, being a writer is what I have most wanted to be, from the time I was a child."
"Ellis's understanding of himself and the world around him certainly develops because of his adventures, and part of that development comes through recognizing other people for what they are."
"I am still in shock and awe at being fired."
"When I perform Strauss, it is as if the music fits me like a glove. My voice seems to lie in a happy area in this music, which is lyrical and passionate at the same time."
"If you want to be a successful runner, you have to consider everything. It's no good just thinking about endurance and not to develop fine speed."
"I'm very girly. I love to talk about diets, exercise, kids, make-up."
"I've never actually been a fighter myself - fighting tires me out and I'm not an efficient fighter anyway - but I have certainly seen other people have great complicated goes at one another."
"I went out with this boy on the proviso that he didn't tell anybody we were together. The idiot didn't keep his mouth shut. I dumped him. I never went out with a boy from school again."
"It was like falling off a building and suddenly, bang, you hit the bottom. The first time it happened was on an ordinary day at home. I was taking down some curtains. I took one step, turned around, took another step and then I fell and hit my head hard on the rowing machine."
"Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different."
"I always thought I'd go to university and then get a real job, you know. Now I want to do stuff that really makes me happy. Although I'm still trying to work out what that is. But for me there are always constants."
"It's such a small industry here you inevitably end up working with the same people over and over again. There are only so many actors to go around, which is good for us."
"When you are writing, of course, you have to do all that writing and correcting for yourself. When I was a librarian it was expected that I would know about a wide range of books."
"Women often postpone their lives, thinking that if they're not with a partner then it doesn't really count. They're still searching for their prince, in a way. And as much as we don't discuss that, because it's too embarrassing and too sad, I think it really does exist."
"Weave me a rope that will pull me through these impossible times."
"I like to have fun with them. I like to toy with them a little bit. we're making television, after all. Right?"
"I'm much more attracted personally to governments going their full term. It's very hard to have a fixed term election I know with ah... a parliamentary democracy, but I've always had an instinct to say there should be a fixed term."
"I hope I am not too repetitive. However, coming to terms with death is part of the general human situation."
"It is peoples' fantasies of what is true that is so extraordinary. That that we were born and that we face eternal extinction after death is an extraordinary fantasy."
"I can't for the life of me see that by being permissive you actually assist anyone."
"My greatest fear is flying. And I do a lot of flying, so that's a bummer."
"To sleep after sunrise was impossible on account of the number of flies which kept buzzing about the face."
"To get an Oscar would be an incredible moment in my career, there is no doubt about that. But the 'Lord of the Rings' films are not made for Oscars, they are made for the audience."
"We used to say that he who threw the biggest tantrum won the day."
"There is nothing likely to get you a bigger headline than attacking your own party."
"I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face."
"The world has been gradually reducing its nuclear arsenals. Testing must stop so that progress on the destruction of nuclear weapons may begin."
"When Jesus calls his disciples 'brothers' and 'friends', he is contradicting general Jewish usage and breaking through into a new concept of brotherhood which is not tribal, but open to any person."
"Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth."
"Nigel might have an earlier date, but I think it's unprecedented from my memory. So it is a reminder to everybody that the public can move very rapidly on some issues and therefore what looks settled may not be."
"A huge change has taken place in my lifetime."
"NGOs have a significant role to play, alongside governments, in improving the status of women."
"The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan. Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces."
"My dad was very fun and very adventurous, and from a formative age I learned to value men who would do things on a whim."
"The government's objective, broadly expressed, is that all persons, whatever their level of ability, whether they live in town or country, have a right as citizens to a free education of the kind for which they are best fitted and to the fullest extent of their powers."
"It's always a mistake for writers to key their submissions to world events, because they move so quickly and unpredictably, as has certainly proven the case in Afghanistan."
"I am really chained to my computer these days so I work in my bedroom, which is a room I have worked in for years and years. It is just as much an office as a bedroom, and during the day, my bed is rather like an extension of my desk."
"Too often the desire for peace has been expressed by women while the stewardship of the mechanisms which are used to attempt to secure peace in the short and medium term are dominated by male decision-making structures and informal arrangements. This must change."
"My theory is that I decided to be a writer when I was about seven, but of course it is not as simple as that. Like most writers, I had to work at other things to earn a living and wrote mainly in the evenings, often very late at night, for many years."
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