If you want to come up with a quote that strikes a chord with Kiwis, choose vivid words and an authentic light-hearted tone. Maybe link it to a significant event involving food, rugby, animals or humbleness in the face of a natural disaster.
That’s the advice from Dr Heather Kavan, who knows a good quote when she hears one. The Massey University senior lecturer founded, and is the driving force behind, New Zealand’s annual Quote of the Year competition.
Started in 2011, quotes are nominated by the public, a shortlist is drawn up and then, based on public votes, the year’s winning words are chosen. This year, we chose “hello darling”, which meets a couple of the requirements for an appealing quote.
For starters, it doesn’t just involve an animal but was uttered by one. Those were the first words Pepper, a six-year-old cockatoo, said when she was found a week after being stolen from the Staglands Wildlife Reserve aviary in November.
It makes Pepper the first non-human to win Quote of the Year. Given its understated nature and authenticity, you could say Pepper demonstrated humbleness in the face of disaster by squawking her catchphrase when Staglands staff arrived to take her home.
Now, a book of “totally classic Kiwi” quotes They Said What? has been released to bring together the most popular of past years. Here, Kavan explains how she started Quote of the Year.
How did you get interested in words and quotes?
HK: I teach courses in communication and journalism, primarily law and speech writing but my PhD is actually in religious studies. Religious rhetoric has an incredible power to move people beyond reason, so that’s how these various interests tie together.
I write about my inspiration [for Quote of the Year] in my book and how, during the 1970s, my father told my sister and me a story about our grandfather during World War I. He and some other prisoners thought they were about to be shot, but it was a mock execution designed to terrify.
Although he was a prisoner of war and thought he was about to die, my grandfather, then only 22, said a line from a cheerful song popped into his head.
I was fascinated and intrigued by “kairotic moments” – when there’s a moment for just the right word. I became fascinated, some might say obsessed, by existential issues and rhythm. When life wasn’t very good for me, I’d recite poems like Tartanilla or The Lady of Shalott.
Why did you decide to start a New Zealand Quote of the Year?
HK: It actually wasn’t my idea. It was my niece’s, Victoria Vinton. I was sitting pulling around the possible idea and she came up with it explicitly. It was, I guess, to make more memorable the quotes that might otherwise be lost.
Part of the appeal was that we would get ones from a range of sources so that the quotes weren’t just from politicians. I love the ones from people like Debbie Sinclair, a Wairarapa bar manager who served musician Ed Sheeran and says, “Oh, have you got ID?”
That was a finalist in last year’s competition and it actually got more votes than one from Jacinda Ardern.
At the time you start, had you been sort of keeping an ear out for quotes?
HK: I teach speech writing, so often we would get the whole class talking about a “sound bite” that stayed in their minds and they were distinctively different from overseas or more elevated rhetoric.
We seem to also like that very vivid language - ghost chips, and diarrhoea in a wet suit – kind of thing. We’re not squeamish; our quotes have a light-hearted tone and sheer authenticity.
How do our quotes differ from overseas?
HK: New Zealand does seem have a very distinctive quality to the types of quotes that people like. You can see the differences between the quotes that New Zealanders vote for and the very popular ones from overseas.
If you look at the quotes that seem to give people goosebumps, the ones that everyone likes and do not get one negative comment on social media – here are two examples:
In 2015, Jake Bailey was Christchurch Boys’ High School head boy and delivered a speech at school prize-giving while he was fighting cancer. He has to go up on stage and deliver a speech; he’s vomiting before he goes on and he doesn’t expect to live. He says: “Here’s the thing – none of us get out of life alive. So be gallant, be great, be gracious, and be grateful for the opportunities that you have.”
Last year’s winner was from Mikey Kihi, Rikki Kihi and Morehu Maxwell. When they were rescuing people during Cyclone Gabrielle, they were asked if they were from the navy. They said, “Nah, we’re just three Māori boys.”
The common ground between these two quotes is this very unusual mix of heroism and courage plus vulnerability and humility. If I look to the United States, one that is most repeated in “I can’t breathe”. There, the enemy is another person and it’s a quote of absolute despair.
But I don’t think people want wise words, they want humanity.
How do you collect the quotes and build a finalist list?
HK: We invite the public to nominate quotes and I’m now incapable of reading a news article without looking for that “soundbite” quote.
In 2020, we were sent a quote from broadcaster Hilary Barry that referenced the national referendum on whether to legalise cannabis for recreational use. I got the nomination – and maybe the nominator was, well, stoned – because they wrote it down as something like, ‘let go of your jazz apples.’
I searched for the exact quote and just couldn’t find it, so during a meeting about the finalists’ list of quotes we decided to dismiss it. I had one more check on Twitter and it came up: “Put your jazz cabbage away, people.”
That quote was extremely popular, but almost didn’t make it onto the list.
Who do you sit down to decide the top 10?
HK: My colleague Dr Cathy Strong and one or two representatives from the communications team at Massey University.
The number we have to consider varies. We take into account how many times a quote was nomination, but we are looking for variety because we want people to vote so we’re looking for quotes that will appeal to a variety of people.
How has Quote of the Year built momentum since it started in 2011?
HK: In the early days, it was often begging friends to share and to vote and begging Massey University to send out a media release!
I think the turning point came in 2017 when the winning quote was from Shortland Street: “Please tell me that is not your penis.” Actor Michael Galvin, playing Dr Chris Warner, was confronting his on-screen son, Harry, about a nude photo he’d found on his phone.
I wrote the media release the night before, it was sent out and I went to bed. I woke up the next day and it was the most read story on BBC news! The video of the scene went viral and Alec Baldwin and Jimmy Kimmel re-enacted the scene on late-night television.
That really helped to raise awareness!
