Top 885 Quotes & Sayings by New Zealander Authors - Page 2

My plan is to shock people with what I can do, because I've got a few sides to me that I've never used on screen.

Riding a bicycle is about getting back to basics. It's good for the waistline and it's good for the wallet, is what I'm saying.

Our motto is whenever you make a mistake, do it twice.

It's clear on the one hand that an education enriches and informs a response to beauty, even makes it possible in esoteric cases. On the other hand, there's no question that someone with no musical education whatsoever might wander into a concert hall and be overwhelmed by the 'Beethoven Pastoral Symphony'.

When I have downtime, music is a big part of my life. Not so much singing, but I play the guitar.

The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan. Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces.

I was doing a late-night round as a milkman in 1978 when I heard a radio DJ announce that he was leaving. I marched straight to the radio station and told them I could do better. For some reason, they gave me a go.

It's definitely going to be harder than it sounds to acquire millions of users in the U.S. It's going to be a lot of work, and you can't make light of that.

If you don't write about what you know, you're like a barrister and have to do a frightful amount of research for each case.

The sexual deviance - I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss that; but we do have hints of it but in a more psychological way and therefore more human way, arguably. Or certainly to the extent that the animated series takes that sexuality.

While I'd like to make movies that are uplifting, there's always that part of you that goes, 'I want to play the evil guy because it's not me.' So anything that is not me is a challenge, and if I rise to the challenge, then I've kind of proved myself.

'Cemetery Lake' was an interesting book to write.

I will say that the food in both Japan and Italy was immaculate. I don't remember having bad food in either country.

You can't just carry everyone else's hopes and fears around in your backpack and expect to stand up straight.

In real life I'm very low-key. A wallflower. One of the reasons I went into comedy and acting was that I was sick of being shy.

I'm a proud New Zealander, and I represent Paralympics New Zealand. I love what I do, and I do it because I love it. The passion is unbelievable in every race I do. I have the ambition to change things outside the pool, too.

You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 1012 to 1.

He who climbs a cliff may die on the cliff, so what? Always a risk-taker by nature, now I became one by intent.

It's just a matter of understanding what's necessary and discipline yourself to do it.

Always be original. Never duplicate what you've seen another actor do. Be true to the character that you've been given, and the rest will come easy.

Schools that are to cater for the whole population must offer courses that are as rich and varied as are the needs and abilities of the children who enter them.

Well it's a drastic procedure by your standards and mine, but for the people who are living in desperation perhaps the best way to understand it is that it seems no more drastic to them than circumcision.

I hate wars and violence but if they come then I don't see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas.

As a teenager I had no idea that I had the potential to win an Olympic gold medal and my athletic career developed only by lucky circumstances.

Don't play for safety - it's the most dangerous thing in the world.

The human race has had long experience and a fine tradition in surviving adversity. But we now face a task for which we have little experience, the task of surviving prosperity.

I'm just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe.

Love is... never asking for more than you are prepared to give.

It is essential for genetic material to be able to make exact copies of itself; otherwise growth would produce disorder, life could not originate, and favourable forms would not be perpetuated by natural selection.

I don't belong to any clubs, and I dislike club mentality of any kind, even feminism - although I do relate to the purpose and point of feminism. More in the work of older feminists, really, like Germaine Greer.

For me to get through the toughest periods in my life, I had to look within to find the energy to do it. I don't give up. Never have. Never will.

I must say I'm a bit more daunted about changing a nappy than I am making a tackle... unless it's Ngani Laumape or Ben Lam.

We live in a digital world where all is available at the touch of a screen. Money has been simplified, changed subtly over time from tangible bills to numbers in cyberspace. Cash is no longer in a cloth bag; it's numbers on a screen. Numbers that can be manipulated and modified. If you run out of numbers, you can just buy some more, right?

After a good training camp, pushing myself, learning new things, I always feel confident coming back to New Zealand.

'It can't be done' is not a phrase I recognize.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

From the first place of liquid darkness, within the second place of air and light, I set down the following record with its mixture of fact and truths and memories of truths and its direction toward the Third Place, where the starting point is myth.

I think that some people like to be someone other than themselves when acting, while others are most themselves. I fall into the second camp. For me, acting is a great exercise in getting to the truth about myself.

I have three favorite cities: London, Wellington, and Los Angeles. What makes them so good? The friends who live there.

New Zealanders have conventions and pleasantries, but we are direct. We are encouraged to be transparent with our behavior and not to employ passive aggression.

Of all created comforts, God is the lender; you are the borrower, not the owner.

I started elocution lessons because I was being teased, and I had a brilliant drama teacher. At the age of 14, I appeared at the National Theatre in 'The Crucible.'

My wedding dress was featured by 'Vogue' and 'American Town and Country,' and from there, people started to come to us because they had seen that dress.

I've worked as a diplomat before I became a politician.

Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb towards it.

Often I listen to songs on repeat for days and days at a time. There's something hypnotic or meditative, and it mirrors the way that I am putting the sentence together, going back over the same phrases again and again.

While I respect my cousin Annette Sykes' commitment in engaging in the political process, I do not endorse or support any political party.

I've been fighting since I was a child, fighting to get out of my circumstances.

I feel like there are a lot of positives in my swing. I'm really going to work around the rhythm of my swing, being able to keep my rhythm and being more consistent. Consistency is what I'm looking for, performance-wise.

We grow up in New Zealand from a young age getting up at 3am to watch the All Blacks play South Africa or England, it's part of who we are. So to be an All Black now is amazing.

Big media companies have lots of money and content, but they have no way to tap into a good base of users.

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different.

Just like any songwriter, I love it when people sing my songs.

If the market is left to sort matters out, social injustice will be heightened and suffering in the community will grow with the neglect the market fosters.

I support a constitutional conversation, as the Labour Party does, which will allow New Zealanders to evolve a more mature and stable constitutional form, but that's not something that I, as Labour Party, would want to impose, either on the party or on the public.

Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect.

I came to the United States to see what would happen in 2000 after working for 20 years in Australia and asked my agent to look out for the nasty roles because I'd become famous for playing the nicest man in Australia. So I wanted to play bad guys.

I lost my mother and my brother when I was 15 in two separate car accidents. I was doing well at school. I was a good sportsperson, but at that point, I gave up on all of those things that were there to be done. I couldn't deal with them.

The entrance into Jerusalem has all the elements of the theatre of the absurd: the poor king; truth comes riding on a donkey; symbolic actions - even parading without a permit!

Except for a few small presses, most publishers are north of Ground Zero.