Honolulu Quotes

“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, Honolulu

“Hawai'i has often been called a melting pot, but I think of it more as a 'mixed plate'---a scoop of rice with gravy, a scoop of macaroni salad, a piece of mahi-mahi, and a side of kimchi. Many different tastes share the plate, but none of them lose their individual flavor, and together they make up a uniquely 'local' cuisine. This is also, I believe, what America is at its best---a whole greater than the sum of it's parts.”
― Alan Brennert, Honolulu

“Good lord -it's only ten o'clock!" A great calm had settled over the house, there was no sound save the soft lapping of waves on the beach outside. "What, in heaven's name, do you do out here?"
"Oh, you'll become accustomed to it shortly," Miss Minerva answered. "At first, you just sit and think. After a time, you just sit."
"Sounds fascinating," said John Quincy sarcastically.
"That's the odd part of it," his aunt replied, "it is. One of the things you think about, at first, is going home. When you stop thinking, that naturally slips your mind.”
― Earl Derr Biggers, The House Without a Key

“ʻIolani Palace also stands in equally strong rebuttal to the notion that the will of Hawaiʻi's Kings and Queens was simply overborne by outsiders. Hawaiʻi's Monarchs from King Kamehameha I on worked diligently and often brilliantly to find the path to draw together traditional Hawaiian culture and values and the forces of Westernization and modernization spreading across the world. This was not an easy path, for there was no model to follow. Each monarch in his or her way remained true to their land and their people. If you look closely and listen carefully, the Palace itself speaks to that path.

That it was ultimately force of arms that brought the journey of modern Hawaiian Kingdom to an end makes it a tragedy and not a denial of honor, integrity, and achievements of that journey.”
― Carol Maxym, ʻIolani Palace: A Metaphor for Two Centuries of Hawaiʻi History