Patricia Grace

Quotes

1. The stories had changed. It was as [he] had said, the stories had changed. And our lives had changed. We were living under the machines, and under a changing landscape, which can change you, shift the insides of you. (Roimata, ch23 p151)

2. 

   I had other stories too, known stories from before life and death and remembering, from before the time of the woman lonely in the moon. Given stories. But before life and death and remembering' is only what I had always thought. It was a new discovery to find that these stories were, after all, about our own lives, were not distant, that there was no past or future, that all time is a now-time, centred in the being. It was a new realisation that the centred being in this now-time simply reaches out in any direction towards the outer circles, these outer circles being named 'past' and 'future' only for our convenience. The being reaches out to grasp those adornments that become part of the self. So the 'now' is a giving and a receiving between the inner and the outer reaches, but the enormous difficulty is to achieve refinement in reciprocity, because the wheel, the spiral, is balanced so exquisitely. These are the things I came to realise as we told and retold our own-centre stories. (Roimata, chapter 5 p39)

3. 

   although the stories all had different voices, and came from different times and places and understandings, though some were shown, enacted or written rather than told, each one was like a puzzle piece which tongued or grooved neatly to another. And this train of stories defined our lives, curving out from points on the spiral in ever-widening circles from which neither beginnings nor endings could be defined. (Roimata, chapter 5 p41)

4. 

   There was once a carver who spent a lifetime with wood, seeking out and exposing the figures that were hidden there. These eccentric or brave, dour, whimsical, crafty, beguiling, tormenting, tormented or loving figures developed first in the forests, in the tree wombs, but depended on the master with his karakia and his tools, his mind and his heart, his breath and his strangeness to bring them to other birth. The tree, after a lifetime of fruiting, has, after its first death, a further fruiting at the hands of a master. This does not mean that the man is master of the tree. Nor is he master of what eventually comes from his hands. He is master only of the skills that bring forward what was already waiting in the womb that is a tree - a tree that may have spent further time as a house or classroom, or a bridge or pier. Or further time could have been spent floating on the sea or river, or sucked into a swamp, or stopping a bank, or sprawled on a beach bleaching among the sand, stones and sun. It is as though a child brings about the birth of a parent because that which comes from under the master's hand is older than he is, is already ancient. (beginning of Prologue)

5. 

   We could not afford books so we made our own. In this way we were able to find ourselves in book It is rare for us to find ourselves in books, but in our own books we were able to find and define our lives. But our main book was the wharenui which is itself a story, a history, a gallery, a study, a design structure and a conga. And we are part of that book along with family past and family yet to come. The land and the sea and the shores are a book too, and we found ourselves there. They were our science and our sustenance. And they are our own universe about which there are stories of great deeds and relationships and mage and imaginings, love and terror, heroes heroines, villas and fools. Enough for a lifetime of selling. (Roimata, ch23 p104)

That’s all the quotes.

5 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more