Hawaiians Quotes & Sayings

My style also has a lot to do with theater because often I'm imagining I'm a character who is wandering by a wall and leaves a mark. Then I'm someone else, who 10 days later leaves another mark. Someone was angry and did this, and then someone came and painted over it, and then the sun bleached it out and the weather exposed it again. — Jose Parla

I guess this is gonna sound kind of weird, but I'm not scared for myself for dying. Because I believe all these places are temporary. This is just one shell. Because we Hawaiians live in both worlds. — Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Sometimes you can love something not because you instinctively connect with it but because another person does, and keeping their things in your heart takes you back to them. — Rachel Joyce

Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. — Martin Luther King Jr.

As Americans gained a new belief in their manifest destiny around the globe, Hawaiians lost their country, the first sovereign nation to become a casualty of America's imperial outreach. — Julia Flynn Siler

Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve! — Thomas Babington Macaulay

Bran held his voice leve. "In time,you will regret these words. You may hold me captive now, and believe me helpless. But each foulword you speak of her brings your death a little closer."
Bran to Eamonn — Juliet Marillier

The fundamental biological variant is DNA. That is why Mendel's definition of the gene as the unvarying bearer of hereditary traits, its chemical identification by Avery (confirmed by Hershey), and the elucidation by Watson and Crick of the structural basis of its replicative invariance, are without any doubt the most important discoveries ever made in biology. To this must be added the theory of natural selection, whose certainty and full significance were established only by those later theories. — Jacques Monod

THE MOCKINGBIRD All summer the mockingbird in his pearl-gray coat and his white-windowed wings flies from the hedge to the top of the pine and begins to sing, but it's neither lilting nor lovely, for he is the thief of other sounds - whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges plus all the songs of other birds in his neighborhood; mimicking and elaborating, he sings with humor and bravado, so I have to wait a long time for the softer voice of his own life to come through. He begins by giving up all his usual flutter and settling down on the pine's forelock then looking around as though to make sure he's alone; then he slaps each wing against his breast, where his heart is, and, copying nothing, begins easing into it as though it was not half so easy as rollicking, as though his subject now was his true self, which of course was as dark and secret as anyone else's, and it was too hard - perhaps you understand - to speak or to sing it to anything or anyone but the sky. — Mary Oliver

I can't speak for all Hawaiians, but the reality is that we depend on tourism. Locals might not want to go to the spots like Waikiki, but we do want tourists to experience more of the islands. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

I knew that Jesus loved me, not because the Bible told me so but because my heart was informed by love. And later, for that same reason, I knew I was attracted to boys. — James Lecesne

Hawaii was defined by its isolation. Its first settlers, probably Polynesians from islands to the south, are thought to have arrived roughly around the time of Christ. Over the centuries, Hawaiians had little contact with anyone else because almost no one could cross the vast expanse of ocean that surrounded their islands. Thousands of unique plants and animal species evolved, more than almost anywhere else on earth. — Stephen Kinzer

One question that especially intrigues me is exactly when humpbacks started coming to Hawaii and why. In artwork and oral histories of ancient Hawaiians there is no record of humpback whales being there, and there is no evidence that humpbacks were there in large numbers in the mid-1800's during the heyday of whaling. The whalers who provisioned in Hawaii in the winter couldn't have overlooked the numbers of whales that are in Hawaii now. We really don't know what happened, but everything points to a recent colonization of humpbacks. (p.162). — Charles "Flip" Nicklin

Ancient Hawaiians say: When you're itching for the waves, the only lotion is the ocean. — Josip Broz Tito

Inside the terminal at Keahole, they sat waiting to board, watching husky Hawaiians load luggage onto baggage ramps. Arriving tourists smiled at their dark, muscled bodies, handsome full-featured faces, the ease with which they lifted things of bulk and weight. Departing tourists took snapshots of them.
'That's how they see us', Pono whispered. 'Porters, servants. Hula Dancers, clowns. They never see us as we are, complex, ambiguous, inspired humans.'
'Not all haole see us that way ... 'Jess argued.
Vanya stared at her. 'Yes, all Haole and every foreigner who comes here puts us in one of two categories: The malignant stereotype of vicious, drunken, do-nothing kanaka and their loose-hipped, whoring wahine. Or, the benign stereotype of the childlike, tourist-loving, bare-foot, aloha-spirit natives. — Kiana Davenport

How come the Chinese can go where I can't go in America? Englishmen can come and set up a business in white America and do things I can't do.The Puerto Rican, Hawaiians, just about everybody can do more than black people and are more respected. — Muhammad Ali

Here in Southern California we San Diegans have a saying. Hawaiians wouldn't appreciate it, but we say it nonetheless. We go outside, look around, and then say, "Just another day in paradise." The saying fits most every day of the year. In San Diego, near the ocean, it's never bitterly cold and it's never oppressively hot. I can appreciate the realities of the nonsublime weather in certain areas of the country. I spent a few years in Chicago for college, before heading back to San Diego. Then I returned to the Chicago area for two years of graduate school. I have figured that in the five years (sixty months) that I spent in the Midwest, forty months consisted of glacial winter. Another seventeen months were hot, airless summer. Perhaps three months over the entire five years were pleasant. Maybe even a day or two could have been described as idyllic. San Diego is different from that. Every five years we have about sixty months of heavenly weather. — Anonymous

My mind contains many good ideas, but it's not always easy to squeeze one out. — Ashleigh Brilliant

Summer in Honolulu brings the sweet smell of mangoes, guava, and passionfruit, ripe for picking; it arbors the streets with the fiery red umbrellas of poincianta trees and decorates the sidewalks with the pink and white puffs of blossoming monkeypods. Cooling trade winds prevail all summer, bringing what the old Hawaiians called makani 'olu' 'olu
"fair wind". — Alan Brennert

You know what I learned about Hawaiians? They're just blown up Mexicans! — Gabriel Iglesias

It is difficult to describe the peace that comes with giving yourself permission to know what you know. To have hard, complicated realities staring at you and be able to raise your head and look back at them with a steady gaze, scared maybe, grieved perhaps, but straight on and unwavering — Valerie Tarico

Hawaii is the birthplace of surfing, and many Hawaiians or part-Hawaiians surf, but in the rest of the United States it's a pretty white sport. — William Finnegan

As it has for America's other indigenous peoples, I believe the United States must fulfill its responsibility to Native Hawaiians. — Daniel Akaka

Shining a light creates shadows, — Michael Lewis

I pick up a lot of stuff from them, but I don't think there's any great trick to acting. — Jason Statham

Sir, you said that if you don't believe God is real, then He can't do anything to you. In that case, sir, then. . . ." He paused. "None of us believe you're real." It took a moment for his meaning to settle in. Abby completed the logic in her mind - if they didn't believe Del Quera was real, then he couldn't . . . he couldn't do anything to them! She had the impulse to burst out in a laugh. No grand statements or famous words were necessary - a difficult question had just been disarmed by an eight year-old. — C.R. Hedgcock

This force is unlimited. It is always moving and always flowing. The ancient Hawaiians, the Kahunas, used the metaphor of the flow of a running stream to represent the divine force. — Wayne Dyer

The last line of Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen is addressed to the American people and their congressmen. "As they deal with me and my people, kindly, generously, and justly, so may the Great Ruler of all nations deal with the grand and glorious nation of the United States of America." It's clever to imply that if the U.S. swallows up her little country, God will smite it. As I reread the last sentance of a book written by a Hawaiian queen wh was taught to read and write by American missionaries, her final thought seems emblematic of how hierarchical Hawaiians adapted to Christianity. Jehovah, "the Great Ruler of all nations," is the highest high chief in the universe. — Sarah Vowell

I will never understand the appeal of the Hawaiian pizza. — Judd Winick

You love the Hawaiians as potential Christians, but you despise them as people. I am proud to say that I have come to exactly the opposite conclusion, and it is therefore appropriate that I should be expelled from a mission where love is not. — James A. Michener

He's basically a good man. But he doesn't know me. Any more than he knew that girl that looked after your mother. He can't know me, not the way I know him. Maybe some of these Hawaiians can, or the Indians on the reservation. They've seen their fathers humiliated. Their mothers desecrated. But your grandfather will never know what that feels like. — Barack Obama

Even though it's still the United States, I think on many levels they feel separate, especially the true Hawaiians - who are not necessarily thrilled to be a part of the United States. But I just love the whole spirit. — Natalie Maines

I remember saying to the chairman after serving the first year, 'Why are we doing this? Why don't the Hawaiians have control?' 'Well, we have no mechanism to do it,' I was told. — Neil Abercrombie

Oh, he was definitely doable. Did Hawaiians have the saying "Save a surfboard, ride a surfer"? — Gina L. Maxwell

Hawaiians want change, and if the Democrats don't offer change, Hawaiians are going to vote for the Republican who offers change. — Ed Case

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. — Cynthia Heimel