Kaui Hart Hemmings

“I've never gone back to the stacks after my book's expiration at the front of the store. Not because I'm above it or anything, but I'd be mortified if someone caught me looking for my own book.”

“Nothing has changed that much, even during filmmaking for 'The Descendants.' I wrote. I took the kids to school. I cleaned the house. And I had dinner with George Clooney.”

“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.”

“Tragedy brings change, and that's what I'm interested in most - how people plunge into change and try to fight, then eventually move with it with grace.”

“I love film and have taken a stab at a screenplay. I love writing dialogue and found it highly enjoyable.”

“Do you guys have sunscreen?” I ask.“No,” Scottie says. “Do we have water?”“Did you bring any?” Alex asks.“No,” I say.Alex pops her head up. “Did you bring snacks for us?”“We can walk to town.”How do mothers manage to bring everything a child could need?”

“Two days a week, I go to my office at The Grotto, a writer's collective in San Francisco. I get there at 8:15 and write until around 1 or 2 P.M.”

“With families, no matter what kind you inherit, at some point you want to announce that you belong to it.”

“People go surfing before work and paddling afterward. My husband is from Wisconsin, and he goes to work in his Hawaiian shirt.”

“Perhaps I did nothing because I don't have enough fear to be a good parent.”

“In putting setting to work, I like to think about long shots and close-ups. The long shot is the overall view of the place in which the characters live - the island, the town, the wide sweep of place. Then we narrow in. The close-up, the tight focus, makes the place different from anywhere else.”

“One day during filming, George Clooney was wearing his surf shirt and board shorts, and my six-year-old daughter was in the background as an extra, playing in the sand - playing herself. She and Clooney suddenly looked equally Hawaiian, equally related to the place I call home.”