Hawaiian Quotes

I'm half Hawaiian and the haka is a very sacred thing, something your family teaches you - my father taught me. ~ Jason Momoa

Traditional (Hawaiian Saying): A road goes down, up and level. In other words. life is like a road. ~ John Richard Stephens

Hands folded under my chin, I drifted. A bruise-colored cloud hung over Koko Head. A transistor radio twanged on a seawall where a Hawaiian family picnicked on the sand. The sun-warmed shallow water had a strange boiled-vegetable taste. The moment was immense, still, glittering, mundane. I tried to fix each of its parts in memory. I did not consider, even passingly, that I had a choice when it came to surfing. My enchantment would take me where it would. ~ William Finnegan

Now is History as fast as the mind remembers. ~ Kirby Wright

I learned the hula, so now I know how to shake my booty Hawaiian style. ~ Sanjaya Malakar

Exploitation was rampant before statehood, and various factions actively tried to eradicate the roots of Hawaiian culture in the process of converting the natives to European religious beliefs. Some of the results can never be undone. We try to honor what is left. ~ Todd Rundgren

Make good the good in you ... and you will slowly steal into the Hawaiian heart, which is all of softness, and gentleness, and sweetness. ~ Jack London

I'll try to communicate, Taylor said. She spoke slowly and deliberately. Hello! We need help. Is your village close?
My village is Denver. And I think it's a long way from here. I'm Nicole Ade. Miss Colorado.
We have a Colorado where we're from too! Tiara said. She swiveled her hips, spread her arms wide, then brought her hands together prayer-style and bowed. Kipa aloha.
Nicole stared. I speak English. I'm American. Also, did you learn those moves from Barbie's Hawaiian Vacation DVD?
Ohmigosh, yes! Do your people have that, too? ~ Libba Bray

Hawaiian music is beautiful and simple. ~ Bruno Mars

A man goes to a foreign country and kills somebody who's not aggressing against him; in a Hawaiian shirt he's a criminal, in a green costume he's a hero who gets a parade and a pension. So that, as a culture, we remain in a state of moral insanity. To point out these contradictions to people in society is to be labeled insane. This is how insane society remains, that anybody who points out logical opposites in the most essential human topic of ethics, is considered to be insane. ~ Stefan Molyneux

At the close of my visit, my Hawaiian friends urged me strongly to publish my impressions and experiences, on the ground that the best books already existing, besides being old, treat chiefly of aboriginal customs and habits now extinct, and of the introduction of Christianity and subsequent historical events. ~ Isabella Bird

When we got to the hotel, the Hawaiian Village, there were 500 screaming women there. The police were trying to keep the crowd back. It was very dangerous. ~ Minnie Pearl

Here is a Hawaiian legend once told to me: Sometimes the dead don't want to be dead. Sometimes souls go flitting around in the air, particles of light, drifting, until a mortal crams the soul back inside its bod. The kino wailua, or spirits, can be spotted anywhere, the face of a rock, a mountainside - a Hawaiian should always look for facial features. It is the mortal's job to perform the kapuku, or resuscitation process. It is our duty to sneak the soul beneath the toenail of a body, let the body rise up like a newly watered plant. ~ T Kira Madden

Out there, all around them to the last fringes of occupancy, were Toobfreex at play in the video universe, the tropic isle, the Long Branch Saloon, the Starship Enterprise, Hawaiian crime fantasies, cute kids in make-believe living rooms with invisible audiences to laugh at everything they did, baseball highlights, Vietnam footage, helicopter gunships and firefights, and midnight jokes, and talking celebrities, and a slave girl in a bottle, and Arnold the pig, and here was Doc, on the natch, caught in a low-level bummer he couldn't find a way out of, about how the Psychedelic Sixties, this little parenthesis of light, might close after all, and all be lost, taken back into darkness . . . how a certain hand might reach terribly out of darkness and reclaim the time, easy as taking a joint from a doper and stubbing it out for good. ~ Thomas Pynchon

I'm a Hawaiian shirt guy. I've made that life decision. ~ Chris O'Dowd

President Obama , I guess, is starting to confess to some of his anxieties. In a recent interview, President Obama said, 'I miss being anonymous.' He said, 'In the old days, I could blend in with all the other Hawaiian Barack Hussein Obamas.' ~ Conan O'Brien

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

There's a beautiful forgiveness practice I love which is quite simple. It's called "Ho'oponopono" (pronounced: ho-o-pono-pono) and it's a lot easier to do than it is to say. It's a Kahuna Hawaiian technique, which involves repeating four phrases internally toward yourself or the person whom you're having a hard time forgiving. ~ Marci Shimoff

A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable. ~ William Christopher Handy

The house cat has gained ground from the Arctic Circle to the Hawaiian archipelago, taken over Tokyo and New York, and stormed the entire continent of Australia. And somewhere along the way, it seized the most precious and closely guarded piece of territory on the planet: the stronghold of the human heart. ~ Abigail Tucker

Gustavo Tiberius speaking."

"It's so weird you do that, man," Casey said, sounding amused. "Every time I call."

"It's polite," Gus said. "Just because you kids these days don't have proper phone etiquette."

"Oh boy, there's the Grumpy Gus I know. You miss me?"

Gus was well aware the others could hear the conversation loud and clear. He was also aware he had a reputation to maintain. "Hadn't really thought about it."

"Really."

"Yes."

"Gus."

"Casey."

"I miss you."

"I miss you too," Gus mumbled into the phone, blushing fiercely.

"Yeah? How much?"

Gus was in hell. "A lot," he said truthfully. "There have been allegations made against my person of pining and moping. False allegations, mind you, but allegations nonetheless."

"I know what you mean," Casey said. "The guys were saying the same thing about me."

Gus smiled. "How embarrassing for you."
"Completely. You have no idea."
"They're going to get you packed up this week?"
"Ah, yeah. Sure. Something like that."
"Casey."
"Yes, Gustavo."
"You're being cagey."
"I have no idea what you mean. Hey, that's a nice Hawaiian shirt you've got on. Pink? I don't think I've seen you in that color before."

Gus shrugged. "Pastor Tommy had a shitload of them. I think I could wear one every day for the rest of the year and not re ~ T.J. Klune

Wearing a Hawaiian shirt, you don't ever come across as offensive. Nobody sees you as a threat. You see someone in a Hawaiian shirt, and you are like 'this guy is ready to party.' ~ Gabriel Iglesias

My seven-year-old daughter knows old songs and how the neighborhoods got their names. There are little things: Businesses receive blessings from Hawaiian priests before opening, and everyone's kids have their debut luau. You can't really get through a day without doing something Hawaiian. ~ Kaui Hart Hemmings

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

The Hawaiian language needs to be studied globally as a language of life. ~ Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa

I think I tried on the hardcore scene's outfits maybe once, and then I just figured I'd stick to Hawaiian shirts. ~ Dave Sitek

The marketing people are always talking about something called 'consumers'. I have this image of a fat little man in baggy Bermuda shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and a straw hat with beer-can openers dangling from it, clutching fistfuls of dollars. ~ Robert James Waller

And maybe Bob-with-the-Hawaiian-shirt was right. Maybe it was cool being on a planet on the far side of the known galaxy. And maybe it was even cooler escaping and getting home again. But the coolest thing of all was having my best friend back. ~ Mark Haddon

Meanwhile, Hawaiian politicians tried to make up for lost time by officially granting cops the "right" to rape sex workers by spelling the permission out in the text of the new prostitution law. When a legislator discovered this provision in 2015 and rewrote the law to scrap it, the cops demanded that their decades-old droit du seigneur remain in place, and it probably would've had not the media gotten hold of the story and a public outcry not ensued. Now there's a movement to decriminalize sex work there, which might at last free Hawaiian whores from the tender mercies of cops. ~ Maggie McNeill

Umica ka hanu
HOLD THE BREATH
Be patient; don't give up. ~ Toni Polancy

Ooo ahe-e, I aya oa a, she said in yawnspeak, a language - not unlike Hawaiian - known for its paucity of consonants. ~ Christopher Moore

Many exhibits from this aquarium use Hawaii's abundant natural daylight. This allows Waikiki to display only live coral, which creates beautiful exhibits. It's also a world leader in the propagation of live coral. The aquarium features some unusual and rarely seen species, including the chambered nautilus and the endangered Hawaiian monk seal. ~ John Grant

As she descended below the floor level of the loft, her former partner in juvenile crime was revealed to her from scuffed paniolo boots, up a long, muscled body that appeared to go on forever, to a venerable black Stetson. His cowboy look was new to her and it suited him. When she backtracked to his Hawaiian-sky blue eyes, she swayed under the impact and abruptly sat down. Any stair step would do." Noelani Beecham, Pele's Tears ~ Sharon K. Garner

The Hawaiian shirts fairly scream to be put on, ~ Maryrose Wood

The diaries also revealed a deeply sensitive, intelligent woman, one who had hoped to start a college for Hawaiian women, affording them the 'same education as men.' She had planned to open a bank for women, enabling them to handle their own financial affairs. She recognized the need for more female lawyers and physicians, the need for women's rights over their bodies, and their destinies. And lastly, though she had a fondness for men, she felt women 'basically didn't need them. ~ Kiana Davenport

Each year, I await with dread the federal government's catalog of endangered and threatened species in the Hawaiian Islands, where I was raised and where I live. ~ Susanna Moore

A trim and tan bikini clad Aphrodite ~ Richard L. Ratliff

Finn stood away from all the water with his friend Dillard, who had taken the occasion to borrow one of his father's Hawaiian shirts. Finn thought he looked pretty cool. ~ Ridley Pearson

If you don't have at least a working knowledge of the Hawaiian language ... you can't chant well. You cannot ... receive the images of poetry paints for you. It's like having peas and no pod. ~ Keali'i Reichel

Honscheid came over from West Germany for the first Hawaiian World Cup and discovered jumping, which was new to him, although Mike Horgan and I were jumping in 1974 and 1975. There ~ Eric Von Hippel

Hula is the language of the heart, therefore, the heartbeat of the Hawai'ian people. ~ Kalakaua

If that shit is a Hawaiian print, I'm going to kill you. ~ J.R. Ward

My dancing is Hawaiian-inspired but I also get a little fresh when it comes to my faster songs. ~ Lana Del Rey

Being shaken to death by a Hawaiian tourist look-alike was not how Arena imagined her death. ~ Lynn Blackmar

Hollywood must be the only place on earth where you can be fired by a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap. ~ Steve Martin

After the third call from my mother, he comes in in a Hawaiian shirt. He is, frankly, bright orange. A shade of personal orange that startles even my mother. A shade that doesn't say health, it says Dulux. ~ Rebecca Sparrow

The author describes how impressed she was with the detailed storyboards that outlined her movie – "not just sketches, but real art". She then describes a Hawaiian sunset as, "God painting His storyboard on the sky". ~ Bethany Hamilton

The revolution of 1893 and the annexation that followed undermined a culture and ended the life of a nation. Compared to what such operations have brought to other countries, though, this one ended well. ~ Stephen Kinzer

As a boy, I felt ashamed of being Mexican. I'd say I was Hawaiian. ~ Juan Felipe Herrera

I'm part Chinese, part Hawaiian, part Filipino, and part nigger. You'd hate to be me ~ Raymond Chandler

Being a Scotsman, I wear a skirt quite a lot, but we're allowed. I have an incredibly loud Hawaiian shirt that's pink and a particularly disgusting turquoise, but I just wear it on days when I'm in a strange mood. ~ Sean Biggerstaff

An evening up on the Empire State roof-the strangest experience. The huge tomb in steel and glass, the ride to the 84th floor and there, under the clouds, a Hawaiian string quartet, lounge, concessions and, a thousand feet below, New York-a garden of golden lights winking on and off, automobiles, trucks winding in and out, and not a sound. All as silent as a dead city-and it looks adagio down there. ~ Dawn Powell

George liked it so, that this island was uncompromising and hard for tourists to negotiate. Not all welcome smiles and black men in Hawaiian shirts, playing pan by the poolside. No flat, crystal beaches, no boutique hotels. Trinidad was oil-rich, didn't need tourism. Trinidadians openly sniggered at the sunburnt American women who wandered down the pavement in shorts and bikini top. Trinidad was itself; take it or leave it. ~ Monique Roffey

I was a very quiet, shy child. I grew up in a small town, Louisville, Kentucky, and there weren't too many Hawaiian-Filipino girls, so I stuck out like a sore thumb. I didn't look like everyone else and didn't feel I belonged ... But these things only build character and make you stronger. It taught me to grow into the woman I was to become. ~ Nicole Scherzinger

My favorite herb - lamb's bread. Kali. I like Hawaiian. But for some reason, you communicate better with Jamaican herb. The best Jamaican herb, it have more energy, more everything to it. ~ Bob Marley

Did you know? Duke Kahanamoku competed in four Olympics from 1912 to 1932 setting three world-records, while winning three gold medals, two silver, and one bronze. ~ John Richard Stephens

Super silver, Hawaiian haze Sativa, indica, Solomon's grave Genesis, chapter one verse twelve ways Marijuana, hashish, everybody blaze Fuels and fibers, energy saved When the natives met the travelers, guess what they gave All praise due to the seeds they raised And the people all over the world that smoke J's Kings and queens, musicians, actors Everyday, working class, stoners, slackers Low key blazers and green bowl packers If Mary Jane is in the house then I'm gon' mack her This is dedicated to everybody in the world that smoke weed Legalize it ~ Aceyalone

Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation
Delivered on December 8, 1941
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:
Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.
It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American shi ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

verybody has an imagination. There's the construction worker who can close his eyes and imagine a Hawaiian vacation. There's the corporate executive with visions of that next big promotion. There's the stay-at-home mother and her perfectly built "cabana boy" who will sweep her off her feet. For a small group of us, we've been fortunate enough to be able to use our imaginations to make a living. ~ R.A. Salvatore

Practice Aloha Around The World:

You don't have to live in Hawai'i--- or even be Hawaiian to embrace the Aloha Spirit.

Aloha can be found in the most surprising places at the most unlikely times. You just have to have an open heart and mind to recognize it! ~ Mark Ellman

New land formed by lava flows belongings to the state, not to abutting property owners. So ruled the Hawai'i Supreme Court in 1977. ~ Larue W. Piercy

Take no heed of good looks , but rather of callused hand.
Old Maori saying: Choose a husband for his work, not his appearance. ~ Toni Polancy

Moke Kupihea has the strength of conviction necessary to impart to the world a more sensitive account of Hawaiian kahuna heritage, which comes down to him from the priesthood line from which he descends. ~ Rubellite Kawena Johnson

Now to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I do this under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands. ~ Lili'uokalani

And what's with the shirt? You think you're in Fiji?"
"It's like being on vactaion. all of the time. ~ Gerard Way

The cause of Hawaii and independence is larger and dearer than the life of any man connected with it. Love of country is deep-seated in the breast of every Hawaiian, whatever his station. ~ Lili'uokalani

Tito snored away on the other bed. Out there, all around them to the last fringes of occupancy, were Toobfreex at play in the video universe, the tropic isle, the Long Branch Saloon, the Starship Enterprise, Hawaiian crime fantasies, cute kids in make-believe living rooms with invisible audiences to laugh at everything they did, baseball highlights, Vietnam footage, helicopter gunships and firefights, and midnight jokes, and talking celebrities, and a slave girl in a bottle, and Arnold the pig, and here was Doc, on the natch, caught in a low-level bummer he couldn't find a way out of, about how the Psychedelic Sixties, this little parenthesis of light, might close after all, and all be lost, taken back into darkness ... ~ Thomas Pynchon

The Hawaiian Islands were discovered by hardy Polynesian sailors, who crossed thousands of miles of open ocean in primitive canoes, braving violent storm-tossed seas for months at a time. My family and I arrived by modern commercial aviation, which was infinitely worse. ~ Dave Barry

Raz was one of those vanguard human beings of indeterminate ethnicity, the magnificent mutts that I hope we are all destined to become given another millennium of intermixing. His skin was a rich pecan color from his dad, who was part African American and part native Hawaiian. His hair, straight and glossy black, and the almond shape of his eyes came from his Japanese grandmother. But their color was the cool blue he'd inherited from his mum, a Swedish windsurfing champion. ~ Geraldine Brooks

And then I see it. Azure Helicopter Tours.
I drag Toraf to the landing pad. "What is that?" he asks suspiciously.
"Um. It's a helicopter."
"What does it do? Triton's trident, it doesn't fly does it? Emma? Emma wait!"
He catches up to me and burps right in my ear. "Stop being a jerkface," I tell him.
"Whatever that is. You don't care about me at all, do you?"
"You came to me, remember? This is me helping you. Now be quiet while I buy tickets." It's a private ride, no other passengers to worry about. Plus, we're not stealing anything. The helicopter can return to land with its pilot as soon as we're done with our part of the mission.
"Why do we need to fly? The water is right there." He points to it longingly. I almost feel bad for him. Almost. But I don't have time for pity.
"Because I think these helicopters can still cover more distance faster than you can haul me. I'm trying to make up for all the time we spent at security in LAX."
"Humans are so weird," he mutters again as I walk away. "You do everything backward."
Since this is a sightseeing flight, the pilot, Dan, a thick Hawaiian man with an even thicker accent, takes his time pointing out all the usual tourist stuff, like the fishing industry, the history of the coast, and other things I have no interest in at the moment. The view of the blue water and visible reefs, the chain of islands, and the rich culture would be breathtaking if I weren't preoccupied with crashing ~ Anna Banks

Coming to Hawai'i is like going from black and white to color. ~ John Richard Stephens

We walked to a nearby bar in the same manner we always seemed to walk, with me a step forward and him a step back. Barack was an ambler. He moved with a loose-jointed Hawaiian casualness, never given to hurry, even and especially when instructed to hurry. I, on the other hand, power walked even during my leisure hours and had a hard time decelerating. But I remember how that night I counseled myself to slow down, just a little - just enough so that I could hear what he was saying, because it was beginning to dawn on me that I cared about hearing everything he said. ~ Michelle Obama

We, the Hawaiian people, who are born from the union of Papahanaumoku and Wakea, earth mother and sky father, and who have lived in these islands for over 100 generations, will always have the moral right to the lands of Hawai'i now and forever, no matter what any court says. ~ Lilikala K. Kame'eleihiwa

The very first thing I saw at this year's Telluride Film Festival was sheer bliss. "Lava," a musical romance from Pixar Animation, was one of the shorts that traditionally precede almost every festival screening; the director was James Ford Murphy. The story, spanning millions of years in 7 minutes, starts with a lonely Hawaiian volcano who, crooning to ukulele accompaniment, yearns for "someone to lava. ~ Anonymous

The chance of any species reaching and then surviving on an island as distant as one of the Hawaiian chain is infinitesimal, but despite the extraordinary odds, plants and seeds found their way ashore, carried by the tide or blown by trade winds, inside birds or in their feathers, in the branches of trees and in the jetsam of sunken ships. ~ Susanna Moore

I'm an American songbook guy, though I've got eclectic tastes. I really love the American songbook. I've taken up the ukulele, and so you can play 'Five Foot Two' and Hawaiian music, but you can also do some of the great tunes, like 'You Go to My Head,' 'I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry,' 'Taking a Chance on Love.' ~ Tony Danza

Sect. 32. Hawaiian authorities are able to throw no light, and conjecture, but little light upon the true meaning of Ia. It is evidently the name or appellation of, or stands to represent, some deity. (The only name of a deity corresponding in form to this is the Hebrew JAH. Ps. 68: 4.) ~ David Malo

History teaches us many things. Most importantly, the things that made us who and what we are. ~ Robert Bonville

The "Kumulipo" is an old Hawaiian prayer chant that poetically describes the creation of the world. The word literally means "beginning-in-deep-darkness." Here darkness doesn't connote gloom and evil. Rather, it's about the inscrutability of the embryonic state; the obscure chaos that reigns before germination. ~ Rob Brezsny