Fiji Day Quotes

Paradise was always over there, a day’s sail away. But it’s a funny thing, escapism. You can go far and wide and you can keep moving on and on through places and years, but you never escape your own life. I, finally, knew where my life belonged. Home.

we went to a church that had missionaries who'd come back once a year from Fiji & give talks. I remember one of them saying it was very hard work telling people they were going to lose their everlasting souls if they didn't shape up. I pictured people sitting on the beach listening to this sweaty man all dressed in black telling them they were going to burn in hell & them thinking this was good fun, these scary stories this guy was telling them & afterwards, they'd all go home & eat mango & fish & they'd play Monopoly & laugh & laugh & they'd go to bed & wake up the next day & do it all again.

THANKSGIVING DAY. Let us all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.

The sun doesn't just shine. It opens your eyes to see the love in the world.

You can’t have a relationship with someone hoping they’ll change. You have to be willing to commit to them as they are, with no expectations. And if they happen to choose to change at some point along the way, then that’s just a bonus. Words start tumbling out of her mouth, concluding with her desire to move in and start a family with me. It sends a chill up my spine, because this is exactly what I want with Ingrid if things work out between us. “You want to move in, stay with me forever, and start a family together?” “Yes,” she says, her eyes widening with equal parts sincerity and supplication. I picture what the future would actually be like with Sage: I imagine us married and raising children—until one day when she feels trapped again, she runs away to Fiji without warning, leaving me to explain to the kids that Mommy left to search for herself and I don’t know when she’s coming back. The winds of ambivalence will continue blowing her back to me and away again, back and away, back and away. They say that love is blind, but it’s trauma that’s blind. Love sees what is.

Alexis, come with me to Fiji,” Jason whispered, holding her body close to his, sounding just as breathless as she was. “I would love to go with you, Jason,” Alexis whispered, her smile stretching bigger with each word that registered in Jason’s eyes. “Really?” Jason asked, sounding like an excited kid with a smile to match. “Yes,” Alexis laughed. Jason flipped her onto her back so she was lying under him on the bed and kissed her fervently, grinding himself into her with his excitement. He planted kisses on every inch of her he could reach, her cheeks, her chin, nose, mouth, ears, and neck. He was everywhere, blurring himself into her with each soft placement of his lips. “You have made me the absolute happiest man in the world tonight, Alexis. You have no idea how many times I have wanted to ask you today, or how anxious I was to hear your answer. The idea of having to say goodbye to you in two days was killing me. I can’t imagine not being with you, babe,” Jason whispered into her ear as his lips and teeth grazed her lobe. Alexis had closed her eyes at Jason’s touch, but they popped open when he reminded her how soon she and her friends would have been leaving. “Was it really only two more days?” Alexis asked. “Not anymore, babe,” Jason said, holding both sides of her face and kissing her adoringly.

We lost not a single animal that night. Every last duck, koala, and roo turned up fine, healthy, and accounted for. After three months, as Wes’s wounds healed up completely, Steve went to him with a proposition. “What do you reckon, Wes,” he said, “are you up for a board meeting?” They grabbed their surfboards, and we all headed to the Fiji Islands. Tavarua was an exclusive atoll, beautiful, with great surf. Steve and Wes also surfed Namotu and caught some unbelievable waves. One day the face of the waves coming in had to have been sixteen feet plus. Just paddling out to the break was epic. I didn’t realize how much effort it took until we had a guest with us, a young lady from Europe who was a mad keen surfer. Steve paddled out to catch some waves, and she paddled out after him. After several minutes, it became apparent that she was having trouble. We idled the boat closer and pulled her in. She collapsed in complete exhaustion. The current had been so strong that, even paddling as hard as she could, she was able only to hold her own in the water. I tried to photograph Steve from the boat. Peter, the captain, very obligingly ran up the side of the wave exactly at the break. I had a great side angle of Steve as he caught each wave. But the whole process scared me. The boat rose up, up, up on the massive swell. As the green water of the crest started to lip over the boat, we crashed over the top, smashed into the back of the wave, and slid down the other side. “It’s okay,” I yelled to Captain Peter. “What?” he shouted, unable to hear as the boat pounded through the swell. “What’s okay?” I gestured back toward the shore. “I don’t need such…incredibly…good…shots,” I stuttered. I just wasn’t confident enough to take photographs while surfing in a boat. I decided to be more of a beach bunny, filming beach breaks or shooting the surfing action from the safety and stability of the shoreline.

There's an old saying that guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days. It's been three weeks now, Armand, and the stench is pretty strong. I don't know how long you're planning to stay in Fiji, but in any event, this is your last evening in my vale.

Now the day has ended, its brief excitements already an imperfect memory.

Coe has always claimed he’s not a nationalist, and it’s true—unlike immigrant Abram, who cared most for America, Coe, Oregon-born, cares most for the American Christ, His power spread throughout the world even as the homeland is denied Him in the secular folly of church/state separation. One day, Coe believes—not yet—America (and Old Europe, too, the Germans and French and Italians who drifted from Christ once their prosperity was assured) will wake up and find itself surrounded by a hundred tiny God-led governments: Fiji, a “model for the nations” under a theocratic regime after 2001, a Family organizer boasted to me; and Uganda, made over as an experiment in faith-based initiatives by the Family’s favorite African brother, the dictator Yoweri Museveni; and Mongolia, where Coe traveled in the late 1980s to plant the seeds for that country’s post-communist laissez-faire regime.

I could see the sun rise from our kitchen window. It always started with a speck of deep orange far in the distance. Slowly the speck would become larger and larger, at last spreading across the sky in a brilliant fan. Then it seemed as though all of Fiji would light up. Birds would chirp. Caterpillars would awaken, stretching and yawning, wriggling their little bodies along leaves and twigs. Frogs would croak to clear their throats. Butterflies would spread their wings as the lizards disappeared into their holes. And the newspapers --they would lay the claim that theirs was the first newspaper published in the world that day.

The prime minister was provoked by what he considered to be unfriendly or inept coverage, or both, over many months. He concluded that the editors had lost control of the newsroom. . .What was probably the last straw for him was coverage of Israeli president Chaim Herzog's visit. When the Foreign Ministry announced the visit, fury flared across the Causeway. The Malaysian prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, recalled his high commissioner to Singapore and demanded the visit be cancelled. For Singapore to do so after the visit was announced would inflict serious damage on its sovereignty. Demonstrations erupted in many parts of Malaysia, and at the Malaysian end of the Causeway more than 100 demonstrators tried to stop a Singapore-bound train. Singapore flags were burnt. There were threats to cut off the water supply from Johor. Malaysia saw the visit as an insult. It did not recognise Israel, and had expected Singapore to be sensitive to its feelings. Singapore, however, could not refuse the Israeli request for its head of state to make a stopover visit in Singapore, the tail end of his three-week tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the Philippines, the first visit to this part of the world by an Israeli leader. Singapore could hardly forget the crucial assistance Israel had provided the Singapore Armed Forces in the early days of independence, when other friendly countries like Egypt and India had declined to help. What angered Lee Kuan Yew was our coverage of the Malaysian reactions to the visit. He felt it was grossly inadequate. . .Coverage in the Malaysian English press was restrained, but in their Malay press, Singapore was condemned in inflammatory language, and accused of being Israel's Trojan horse in Southeast Asia. A threat to target Singapore Airlines was prominently reported. . .And by depriving Singaporeans of the full flavour of what the Malaysian Malay media was reporting, an opportunity was lost to educate them about the harsh reality of life in the region, with two large Muslim-majority neighbours.

49. Go To Fiji…Every Day! He needed to do ten days’ worth of work in one. Early the next morning, before the sun came up, Mark was awake and downstairs, getting ready for his monster mission to get through his to-do list. He made a quick cup of tea, did a couple of stretches, then hit his desk with huge energy and total focus. He had to get through this and get to Fiji, and he had to do it today. That morning he worked like he had never worked before: he didn’t dodge the hard tasks or just pick the fun ones. No, not that day. Mark started at the top and refused to move on to the next item until each task was done, completed, filed and closed. He was like a rhino, attacking that list head-on with purpose. He had a holiday to go on. Any obstacle he came across on his list, he put his rhino horn down and charged through it, never taking no for an answer until he got the result he needed. By lunchtime he was halfway through his monster work pile. He was so focused he forgot about lunch, and by 4 p.m. he had completed everything. Done. He leant back and let out a big sigh of satisfaction, amazed at how he had managed to do two weeks’ worth of work in less than a day. One thought crossed his mind as he sat there enjoying the fruits of his hard work, and it changed everything for Mark from that day on… ‘Imagine if I had to go to Fiji every day!’ Imagine how much we could all do, how many goals we could charge down, people we could help, adventures we could have and promotions would be ours…if we could just set about them all with that Fiji attitude. That’s why I often say to myself when I have a lot on: It’s time to go to Fiji!