One of my theories about why we've been cranky is Australians have been forced to focus on politics or party politics a little bit more than they normally would.

I believe that in the long run, separation between Israel and the Palestinians is the best solution for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We'll fight terror like there's no peace, and make peace like there's no terror.

You have got to sit down and talk to people. You can't understand people from a distance.

There is no way of finding the middle ground, even with the best intentions of the world. Our most sensible policy is to stall.

We can continue to fight. We can continue to kill - and continue to be killed. But we can also try to put a stop to this never-ending cycle of blood. We can also give peace a chance.

I have been interested in the 12th century since my 20s when it was very fashionable to say of anybody with whom you disagreed, which was basically anybody over the age of 30, "One of the great minds of the 12th century", and one day I thought, "I don't know anything about the 12 century." So I started buying books, reading about it, and I discovered it was a period of great flowering, it was a Renaissance before what we think is the Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance of the 16th century.