269 Quotes by New Zealander authors

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From Aotearoa, voices carry the tang of salt and fern, mixing plainspoken wit with quiet resolve. They tend to prize whānau over ego, whenua over possession, mahi done well over talk. You’ll hear te reo Māori beside English, a cadence shaped by marae and shearing sheds, rain-slick cities and alpine shadow. Themes circle mana, kaitiakitanga, and the modest laugh that keeps pride in check. Expect understatement, stubborn hope, and affection that works rather than announces.

See the complete list of authors from New Zealand

"Worrying is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere"

Glenn Turner, Athlete

Glenn Turner

"If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment"

Ernest Rutherford, Psychologist

Ernest Rutherford

"All science is either physics or stamp collecting"

Ernest Rutherford, Psychologist

Ernest Rutherford

"As a teenager, I had no idea that I had the potential to win an Olympic gold medal and my athletic career developed only by lucky circumstances"

Peter Snell, Athlete

Peter Snell

"Of all created comforts, God is the lender; you are the borrower, not the owner"

Ernest Rutherford, Psychologist

Ernest Rutherford

"Running became boring because it's so predictable. I got to a point where I knew what my competition could do"

Peter Snell, Athlete

Peter Snell

"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"

Arthur Lydiard, Athlete

Arthur Lydiard

"By the time ordinary life asserted itself once more, I would feel I had already lived for a while in some other lifetime, that I had even taken over someone else's life"

Margaret Mahy, Author

Margaret Mahy

"Writing for young children, I find I often use particular jokes with words and exaggerated, funny events, but some of these haunt the more complex stories for older children, too"

Margaret Mahy, Author

Margaret Mahy

"When I was a child, I had a best friend who lived across the road from me. When her mother died unexpectedly, it was like losing a member of my own family. I think I am still affected by the memory of that loss"

Margaret Mahy, Author

Margaret Mahy

"It is a good idea to know which publishers publish which stories. For example, there is no sense in sending a picture book text to a publisher who does not publish picture books"

Margaret Mahy, Author

Margaret Mahy

"Every writer has to find their own way into writing"

Margaret Mahy, Author

Margaret Mahy

"It's just a matter of understanding what's necessary and discipline yourself to do it"

Arthur Lydiard, Athlete

Arthur Lydiard

"Encourage kids to enjoy running and play in athletics. Don't force them to run too much competition"

Arthur Lydiard, Athlete

Arthur Lydiard

"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"

Katherine Mansfield, Author

"The greatest barrier to someone achieving their potential is their denial of it"

Simon Travaglia, Author

"Yes, I'm afraid the life over here is very different from N.Z., but oh boy it's a grand life"

Jack Lovelock, Athlete

"Anyone interested in the world generally can't help being interested in young adult culture - in the music, the bands, the books, the fashions, and the way in which the young adult community develops its own language"

Margaret Mahy, Author

Margaret Mahy

"This is not a letter but my arms around you for a brief moment"

Katherine Mansfield, Author

"I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face"

Katherine Mansfield, Author

"There's a side of me that dislikes feminism. I think we surrendered something and women were unable to reveal any kind of vulnerability"

Rachel Hunter, Model

"Excellent, there's nothing quite like a blunt object to reinforce proper administration ethics"

Simon Travaglia, Author

"Sometimes I think I am still that 5-year-old girl playing with her dogs in the yard. That's how I see myself"

Rachel Hunter, Model

"Because I've been on the receiving end of infidelity, I know how much it hurts"

Rachel Hunter, Model

"Now I'm this far up the ladder and I've got so much farther to go with what I want to achieve with it"

Karl Urban, Actor

"We can survive as a population only if we conserve, develop sustainably, and protect the world's resources"

Silvia Cartwright, Statesman

"They think I'm going to be a schoolteacher but I'm going to be a poet"

Janet Frame, Novelist

"Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination"

Janet Frame, Novelist

"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"

Jim Bolger, Statesman

"That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something"

Karl Urban, Actor

"There is no glory in war, yet from the blackness of its history, there emerge vivid colours of human character and courage. Those who risked their lives to help their friends"

Silvia Cartwright, Statesman

"And if you're getting a poll coming out month after month saying something and then all of a sudden does an enormous swing in one direction - you are dealing with a more volatile electorate than most people believe they have"

Jim Bolger, Statesman

"It is essential for genetic material to be able to make exact copies of itself; otherwise growth would produce disorder, life could not originate, and favourable forms would not be perpetuated by natural selection"

Maurice Wilkins, Scientist

"I knew that I could be more creative onstage, to state my own case and deliver my own interpretation of the role much more aggressively than in the recording studio"

Kiri Te Kanawa, Musician

"To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision"

Jane Campion, Director

"On embarking to return we could perceive no sign of One Tree Island; and as we swept down towards the sea the leafy top of a tree seen in the clear water under the boat was the only evidence of its existence; though a few hours ago it had formed so prominent an object"

George Grey, Leader

"The biggest thing for me is just to get out on that field. Just to do that will be incredible"

Jonah Lomu, Athlete

"After all, just one virus on a computer is one too many"

Glenn Turner, Athlete

Glenn Turner

"As every new breed of virus is conceived, created and released into the wild, another small change is made to the anti-virus software to combat the new threat"

Glenn Turner, Athlete

Glenn Turner

"There is one major problem with anti-virus software: It needs updating. Users cannot be relied upon to have even the anti-virus software in the first place, let alone be able or willing to pay for the updates"

Glenn Turner, Athlete

Glenn Turner

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