Opera was the cinema of its time, so to bring back that popular appeal, you just need to unleash its visceral immediacy and excitement. Most productions don't manage that - but when an opera does do it, you never forget it.

If Paris is a city of lights, Sydney is the city of fireworks.

I feel funny about owning art. I don't really want to say: "Wow, come and see my Monet - it's in a dark room at the bottom of my cellar."

The race is long but in the end it is only with YOURSELF.

Sydney in general is eclectic. You can be on that brilliant blue ocean walk in the morning and then within 20 minutes you can be in a completely vast suburban sprawl or an Italian or Asian suburb, and it's that mix of people, it's that melting pot of people that give it its vital personality.

Australia, to the rest of the world, is just far away, and Australia in the Thirties was the faraway of the faraway.

The ugly duckling is a misunderstood universal myth. It's not about turning into a blonde Barbie doll or becoming what you dream of being; it's about self-revelation, becoming who you are.