Samoa Quotes

“You don't love someone because they're a dream of perfection. You love them because of the way they meet their challenges, how they struggle to overcome. You love them because together, you bring out the best in each other.”
― Lani Wendt Young, Telesa: The Covenant Keeper

“His fingers painted my skin with ruby red patterns of desire. In Keahi’s kiss I could taste the red burn of chili encrusted in the rich sweetness of melted chocolate. I breathed in his scent and it spoke to me of vanilla. The ink of my malu tattoo began to burn, searing markings of fiery joy.”
― Lani Wendt Young, When Water Burns

“You will be the one chosen to reach out to embrace man once again as the heart. So that all will be as it should. ‘Fatu-ma-le-ele-ele’ You will give your fire so that Man may live. And he will give his heart so that earth may live.
Thus it has been spoken.”
― Lani Wendt Young, When Water Burns

“Excuse me? You're the one who was out to mislead me with your alluring bimbo slinkiness! What if I had believed your act last night? What if I had fallen deeply and madly in love with you? You would have had the blood of my love-sickness on your hands, Leila Folger.”
― Lani Wendt Young, Telesa: The Covenant Keeper

“Her look is all passion
No agony
There is enough of that on the ground, with the mourners-
Mary, all the Marys
The slutty one
The motherly one
The contrary one
The queen
The queer
The virgin
All the women looking up, waiting for her resurrection”
― Tusiata Avia, Big Fat Brown Bitch

“Keahi was a man turned to stone at the sight of her. Stone that bled and wept and pulsed with fire. He looked at Teuila as if for the first time. He looked at her like a man long-starved. He looked at her as if he had been
waiting for her all his life.”
― Lani Wendt Young, Fire's Caress

“Thou art fearfully and wonderfully made.”
The darkness in her eyes dimmed at his words, and a smile chased away
the shadows. “That’s my favourite scripture and the inspiration for my key
work–”
“In your Ragged Soul exhibition at the end of your final year at the academy. Yes, I know.”
― Lani Wendt Young, Fire's Caress

“...and even though I wasn’t listening, wasn’t searching for it – it spoke to me. I felt it come alive under my hands. My first sculpture almost made itself. I moved on to working with stone, wood. And every time, it felt right. Y’know? It felt like–”
“Home. It felt like home,” said Keahi.”
― Lani Wendt Young, Fire's Caress

“Teuila laughed. With her head cradled against the broad strength of his chest, secure in the warmth and safety of his embrace, she realised, 'This is what happiness feels like…”
― Lani Wendt Young, Fire's Caress

“He kissed her like the world was ending and
her touch was the last thing he wanted to savour as he met death. He kissed her like she was the sun and he was the forest unfurling to meet the dawn, like he would not and could not make it through the day without her.”
― Lani Wendt Young, Fire's Caress

“Hear ye,
"It is the minorities
who need the protection of free speech"
except when it is a poem
twisted into a headline
in an election year”
― Tusiata Avia, Big Fat Brown Bitch

“How do we trace the whakapapa of our symbols <> when our
grandmother is dead <> and our father is dead <> and our great
uncles and aunties are dead <>”
― Tusiata Avia, Big Fat Brown Bitch