Oceania Quotes

“Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding, Oceania is hospitable and generous, Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper still, Oceania is us. We are the sea, we are the ocean…”
― Epeli Hau'ofa, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works

“One of the more positive aspects of our existence in Oceania is that truth is flexible and negotiable, despite attempts by some of us to impose political, religious, and other forms of absolutionism. Versions of truth may be accepted for particular purposes and moments, only to be reversed when circumstances demand other versions; and we often accede to things just to stop being bombarded, and then go ahead and do what we want to do anyway.”
― Epeli Hau'ofa, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works

“Even in Africa, I had never seen such a profusion of stars as I saw on these clear nights on Pacific isles - not only big beaming planets and small single pinpricks... but also glittering clouds of them - the whole dome of the sky crowded with thick shapes formed from stars, overlaid with more shapes, a brilliant density, like a storm of light over a black depthless sea, made brighter still by twisting auroras composed of tiny star grains - points of light so fine and numerous they seemed like luminous vapor, the entire sky hung with veils of light like dazzling smoke... they made night in Oceania as vast and dramatic as day.”
― Paul Theroux, The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific