All right, everyone… Just how am I supposed to pick out these furry brown little things? Is there a particular color or “feel” I should look for? Also, how should they taste? Sour, sweet, or a combination of the two? Inquiring kiwi birds want to know 
Good kiwis go from hard and sour, to soft and sweet, to gushy and sweet, to slushy and fermented.
So it is best to get them when they are slightly soft. Rock hard means they will take a long time to ripen (put them in a paper bag to speed this up) but also they may have been picked too soon, so they may never be as sweet as you’d like.
You should be able to peel the skin off of a perfectly ripened kiwi by hand, but if you are impatient you can cut them in half and spoon them out of the rind. This is if you’re just eating them. Obviously you should use a very sharp knife if you are using them for presentation.
Its a matter of taste. I like them when they are just underripe so they are firm and have a slight tart taste. They should be ever so slightly yielding when you squeeze them gently
The easiest way to peel them (which AFAIK, I invented for myself) is to slice off both ends, then insert a teaspoon into the edge of the fruit so that the back of the spoon is just below the skin (in much the same way as you would try to gouge out an eyeball, if you were so inclined), then, pressing your thumb on the skin, run the spoon around the inside (in a sort of movement calculated to ‘scrape’ the inner surface of the skin), repeat from the other end of the fruit and squeeze and the contents come out completely intact.
Phew! easier to do than to describe.