Polynesia Quotes

“That’s what I like about Polynesians. They wear their hearts on their sleeve knowing that, for adults, there are better games to play than hiding their emotions from each other”
― Carol Vorvain, Why Not?: The island where happiness starts with a question

“There is a reason the remote Pacific was the last place on Earth to be settled by humans: it was the most difficult, more daunting even than the deserts or the ice.”
― Christina Thompson, Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia

“The only place among the southern islands where a ship can put in and get what it wants in comfort is where the Gospel has been sent to. For my part, I don't know and I don't care what the Gospel does to them, but I know that when any o' the islands chance to get it, trade goes smooth and easy.”
― R.M. Ballantyne, The Coral Island

“The case of Ballantyne's The Coral Island is instructive, for the author had never seen a coral island, or, indeed, a palm tree, or a coconut, and his novel is a construction out of his reading of other books, some of which are pillaged to the point of plagarism. The textual bricolage is matched by the ironic presentation of the imperial values which it is generally assumed the book exists to promote: a pirate by the name of 'Bloody Bill' is allowed to articulate how useful religion is to the advancement of trade (and plunder).”
― Fiona McCulloch, The International Companion to the Scottish Novel