Popular quotes about Australia! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 55
I believe that the mistakes that we made in Europe in the last decades by allowing so much mass immigration from Islamic countries is a warning that if Australia is not vigilant enough to preserve the freedom, what has happened here might happen to Australia in the next decades as well.
Geert WildersThere's a sort of absurdity to Australia and the so-called New World nations. I sensed it all the time growing up in Western Australia, which is really remote.
Shaun TanBut although Australia was also involved in the Vietnam conflict, I can remember my dad telling us that if we were in Australia, we wouldn't be drafted until we were 20.
Mel GibsonFor a while Australians were desperately trying to be cosmopolitan. I think it is a pointless exercise. Australian novels are those rooted in Australia, with Australian landscapes and colours. My work has always had bits of Western Australia in it. It is always here. The world comes to us.
Tim WintonWhen you think of how much violence, how much blood... how much has been destroyed to create the great nations, America, Australia, Britain, Germany, France, Belgium - even India, Pakistan. Having destroyed so much to make them, we must have nuclear weapons to protect them - and climate change to hold up their way of life... a two-pronged annihilation project.
Arundhati RoyIn Australia there are not limits on what you can believe but there are limits on how you can behave. It's called the law, and no one is above it.
Nick XenophonIt is always amusing to me and delightful of course that my books sell so well in America and other parts of the world. I can't imagine what people must think as they read my books in Poland. Or in Hebrew and Greek. People are reading all the stories which are about bits of Western Australia.
Tim WintonIt was a positive sign that the conversation took place, it's a sign of the depth of the friendship between Australia and Indonesia.
Tony AbbottNew Zealand is a pretty no-nonsense place to work, like Australia. I mean it doesn't falter to anyone.
Dustin ClareI was born in Norwich in 1946, and educated in England, Zimbabwe, and Australia, before my family settled in North Wales.
Philip PullmanThe Labour Party of today has fits of horrors of the very thought of somebody like me might saying that they bought in white Australia. But I believe they did.
Colleen McCulloughI had a good personal relationship with Lee Kuan Yew and I used him, in the sense, that he... He made a statement in 1980, and he said in that statement that, "If Australia keeps going the way it is, it will finish up the poor, white trash of Asia." And he was right, because we were just going backwards.
Bob HawkeI also know Patrick White in Australia, both personally and as a writer, and Salman Rushdie in India.
William GoldingI only get to spend about six to eight weeks in Australia now and I really miss my family and friends.
Karrie WebbA collection of huts surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and in the huts lived 500 of the original inhabitants of our area. And so it went with many country towns around Australia.
Phillip NoyceThere have been 44 constitutional referenda in Australia and only eight have succeeded.
George BrandisWe've seen progressive rock all over the world, in South America, Europe, Asia, across the US and North America and Australia. There's huge audiences for this stuff. For me it's always been there and it's just a matter of time before the people have more of the means to spread the word.
John PetrucciI actually did my research and tried to get kind of like a working visa for Australia. It always seemed like it was a land of opportunities. The same size as the United States with one-tenth of the population.
Rick NielsenI have no problem with my age. I've been acting for 50 years in Australia and everyone knows my age because I started at 15. So there was never any point in lying about it.
Jacki WeaverNever was a continent naturally so clean, and made so dirty, as Australia. There was not an animal pest, scarcely a vegetable pest; fools and the old world supplied them all.
Randolph BedfordHere in Australia we do get impacted by global economic events. But we should have some confidence that our economy has got strong underlying fundamentals.
Julia GillardI don't despair about the cultural scene in Australia because there isn't one to despair about.
Robert HelpmannIf politicians continue to promote separatism in Australia, they should not continue to hold their seats in this parliament. They are not truly representing all Australians, and I call on the people to throw them out.
Pauline HansonWhile I was trying to save money to go to the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Australia I ended up getting all of this experience which meant that by the time I had enough money in the bank to go to school I didn't really need to go to school anymore.
Russell CroweHip hop has always been, for us, for artists who are pure to the craft - any place overseas, whether it's Australia, any place in Asia, Germany, Africa, it becomes something where you can still go and work. Hip hop is an import culture. We're spoiled by it here. It's homegrown.
Talib KweliThe Trump administration has done some bad stuff in the international realm, picking needless fights with allies like Mexico and Australia, even using some idiotic and intemperate language about Iran, but there was one thing they did about Iran that I agree with. Which is if Iran is testing anti-ballistic missiles, it's in violation of a UN Security Council resolution. And we can't ignore that ... And they did condemn the anti-ballistic missile test. And I think they're right about that.
Tim KaineBut in this case, he had my cell phone and my phone was ringing and I had just come back from Australia on the plane and I thought it was my mum and it was Woody Allen just checking to see if I wanted to be in his movie.
Radha MitchellThis time last year I would have said Federer would beat Sampras's record. Now I'm not so sure. His aura has gone. He's not as dominant as he was, and since I beat him in Australia he's looked frustrated. Players are beginning to challenge him now, especially myself and Rafa. He's got 12 Grand Slams to his name and maybe he will beat Sampras, but now I'm here it will be tough for him.
Novak DjokovicI want to go to Australia so bad, do comedy there, and see the people there. It's a great country. I have friends that are Australian that have told me all about it. I want to do comedy there.
Brad WilliamsAlone of all the races on earth, they seem to be free from the 'Grass is Greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome, and roundly proclaim that Australia is, in fact, the other side of that fence.
Douglas AdamsAustralia's is a special kind of philistinism, an immovable materialism which puts art and ideas of any kind deliberately and firmly to one side to let the serious business of living proceed without distraction.
Robin BoydI'm not saying this in a condescending kind of way, but it's quite simple: The making of America was a heroic thing. Australia has a much murkier, much more complex view of its history. It's just full of all these open wounds we don't really know what to do with.
Nick CaveEven with the recent story about the nurse killing herself in King Edward Hospital, there's no blame placed on Kate Middleton, who was in the hospital as far as I could see for absolutely no reason. She feels no shame about the death of this woman, she's saying nothing about the death of this poor woman. The arrogance of the British royals is staggering, absolutely staggering. And why it's allowed to be I really don't know... It wasn't because of two DJs in Australia that this woman took her own life, it was the pressure around her.
Steven MorrisseyThe Montefiores have taken Australia for their own, and there is not a gold field or a sheep run from Tasmania to New South Wales that does not pay them a heavy tribute. They are the real owners of the antipodean continent. What is the good of our being a wealthy nation, if the wealth is all in the hands of German Jews?
Will HughesI think it's interesting that the United States and Australia are two of the most individualistic nations in the entire world in terms of national personality.
Katharine HayhoeIn Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of sailboating equipment, the gin and tonic.
P. J. O'RourkeBut the people of the disaster area fundamentally needed to understand that the rest of Australia had noticed their misery and their stoicism and their intense sense of community and determination to arise from the sodden wreckage of their homes, and that Australians would dig deep to help. I helped to describe the community ethos which quickly triumphed over incipient despair. It is this mobilisation of the unifying spirit that thrills us all, even as we mourn.
Peter CosgroveIf you were a person in Rockhampton who is wondering where your next job was coming from, and you had the prospect of one of Australia's largest ever coal projects with a very, very long life span being developed and reviving the regional economy. And you saw the Greens in particular doing their little best to stop it happening.
George BrandisI have had people come to the site from all over the world. The US and Canada predominantly, but also Brazil and South Africa and Greece and Indonesia and Hong Kong and Ireland and Argentina and Spain and Israel and Australia.
Sophie BlackallAustralia is properly speaking an island, but it is so much larger than every other island on the face of the globe, that it is classed as a continent in order to convey to the mind a just idea of its magnitude.
Charles SturtAs a four-year-old, my mother told me I was climbing the fence, jumping off and calling myself an 'eppyplane'... I bought books on aeroplanes, I followed everything in the newspapers about aeroplanes. Amy Johnson flew to Australia in 1930 - why couldn't I do something like that?
Nancy Bird WaltonIt was fine when I was single and childless. Carrying the responsibility of screwing up your kids at the same time is huge. I remember when I got Peter Pan, and I told my mom and dad and my friends I was leaving - again, I was cast way late on - in the next two days to go to Australia for four months, and they all went "Bye! See you in four months!" But no one said "We need you," and I really knew that it was time to think about someone else for a change.
Olivia WilliamsAt the moment people get on boats because they flee terror at home and believe the many years' long wait in UNHCR camps is not a valid option, especially if they have children in their care. After the Vietnam War, Australia took a larger humanitarian intake than at any other period in our history. The Australian community accepted that. They were told why we needed to do it, and why it was the only ethical decent policy that a wealthy advanced country should adopt.
Malcolm FraserAlthough it is tempting to think of these natural landscapes as reflecting a stability in climactic and geologic forces, long periods of climactic and geophysical stability actually result in a rundown of the energy available to ecosystems and people. Geologically young regions with recent mountain building and volcanism tend to be much more biologically productive and have supported large populations of people despite their vulnerability to natural disasters. Geologically old regions (like most of Australia) tend to have low biological productivity and supported fewer people.
David Holmgren