New Zealand QUOTES

1 " And Goneville? It is a name that kept coming up as I was writing this book, and each time its meaning shifted a little. It's almost Gonville, the suburb of Whanganui where Johnny Devlin, New Zealand's first rock 'n'roll star, grew up, so arguably the birthplace of New Zealand rock 'n'roll. But it is also an imaginary place that might be every obscure New Zealand town that every obscure New Zealand band ever played. "

― , Goneville

2 " Maybe your college professor taught that the legacy of colonialism explains Third World poverty. That’s nonsense as well. Canada was a colony. So were Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. In fact, the richest country in the world, the United States, was once a colony. By contrast, Ethiopia, Liberia, Tibet, Sikkim, Nepal and Bhutan were never colonies, but they are home to the world’s poorest people. "

― Walter Williams

3 " The long-term integrity of the empire would not be assured by warm words alone. Britain" s own position in the empire had changed. Once, the country been the engine room of empire, the productive heart of the beast. But with Britain becoming more like a boardroom, investing money, taking decisions, but essentially living off the labor of others, and off the earnings of the past? At some point in the future, might even this role wither away, and might Britain become little more than a repository of British tradition, a common idealized land into which Britons abroad – in Australia, Canada, New Zealand or South Africa – could retreat, a collective memory of Greenfields and swooping glens? "

4 " Maybe scientists are fundamentalist when it comes to defining in some abstract way what is meant by 'truth'. But so is everybody else. I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. "

― Richard Dawkins , The God Delusion

5 " But the thought of New Zealand instantly sent her mind to Watson, the possibly-Australian, possibly-Kiwi, definitely paranormal young fellow with videos of dead guys on his phone. "

― Molly Ringle , Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories, #1)

6 " I shall always attribute my uncertain start in New Zealand to the fact that I was introduced too early to what is knows as the 'five o'clock swill'. The phrase has, when you consider it, a wonderful pastoral - one might almost say idyllic - ring to it. It conjures up a picture of fat but hungry porcines, all freshly scrubbed, eagerly and gratefully partaking of their warm mash from the horny but kindly hands of the jovial farmer, a twinkling eyed son of the soil.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The five o'clock swill is the direct result of New Zealand's imbecilic licensing laws. In order to prevent people getting drunk the pubs close at six, just after the workers leave work. This means they have to leave their place of employment, rush frantically to the nearest pub, and make a desperate attempt to drink as much beer as they can in the shortest possible time. As a means of cutting down drunkenness, this is quite one of the most illogical deterrents I have come across. "

― Gerald Durrell , Two in the Bush

7 " There's a very go-to kind of attitude in New Zealand that stems from that psyche of being quite isolated and not being able to rely on the rest of the world's infrastructure. "

8 " 'Heavenly Creatures' was really the idea of Fran Walsh. It was a very famous New Zealand murder case, but not one that people knew much about. "

9 " By and large, women in New Zealand are fortunate compared with some other countries, including many in our own region. But there is still progress to be made. "

10 " One of the best things about growing up in New Zealand is that if you are prepared to work hard and have faith in yourself, truly anything is possible. "

11 " I'm from Canada, and New Zealand feels like you took all the best bits of Canada and squished them onto a tiny island like Hawaii. I was absolutely blown away by the beauty of the South Island. "

12 " I keep trying to bring a more professional approach to New Zealand cricket. It's an uphill battle. I stay in the game because I find it intriguing and interesting. I'm not interested in coaching international sides. I don't mind short-term coaching. I don't want to get involved in the politics of teams. "

13 " I was in New Zealand and met this girl. Her sister dared me to bungee jump, so I did! It was a spur-of-the-moment decision - I wanted to impress the girl, and it worked! We were in a relationship after that. "

14 " If I have the choice of traveling to Russia, India or New Zealand alone for a week for preliminary discussions or to spend that week with my family, I routinely choose my family. "