Nikki

“After tea [Nanny Ripeka] began to tell me the old photographs, which I already knew, fading on every wall. Tell me who they were and what they were to me. Then she told me of the ones before that, who were not on the walls but whom she had known. Then back before that to the ones she had never known or seen. And her voice that had been slow at the beginning and thoughtful began to chant out the ancient names coming from far back, so I could know them. I was beginning to know them because I had heard them many times before. Beginning to know, yet knowing there was more to understand.”
― Patricia Grace, Mutuwhenua : the moon sleeps

“Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better way still), feel very little. See the consequences of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybody. Get yourselves married as they do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and confidantes. At any rate, never have any feelings which may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any required moment command and withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be respected, and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair.”
― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“Most of all, I am exhausted from being different. You've never had to live in a place where you're different, where you are the "other".”
― Shankari Chandran, Song of the Sun God

“You didn't change, Amma, you've never had to. If we let this tradition go, what's next? We do these traditions to remind ourselves - to remind the children - who they are and where they've come from.”
― Shankari Chandran, Song of the Sun God