Quotes by Australian authors

"Everyone has a right to a university degree in America, even if it's in Hamburger Technology"

"My salvation was a free gift. I didn't have to work for it and it's better than any gold medal that I've ever won"

"I realised from a very early age that God gave me a gift, and that gift was to run, and I wanted to use it to the best of my ability"

"My parents always encouraged me and I had a good home life. We were always taught to respect things and other people. It's so different today, because children are just not taught the right way"

"The integral part of being a star is having the will to win. All the champions have it"

"You've got to stick at a thing, a particular thing, until you succeed.I feel that's the only way to succeed - by concentrating on something in particular. Once you know what you've got to do you will succeed, you will succeed"

"Everything I did that required effort, I opened my mouth. Even to catch a ball, I opened my mouth"

"I always felt free when I ran. I suppose that's what was good about it"

"Women are incredible in groups together. Terrifying. Men have nothing on them"

"There's something intrinsically Australian about a bunch of brothers and school friends getting together as a band at a very young age and all pulling together as a band at a very young age and all pulling together as mates to make something happen"

"My favourite event was the 200m, so as I won the 100m, I thought it was possible I'd win the 200m"

"No way did I ever think I was going to win the 100m"

"They're very nationalistic the French - or they used to be. Very insular. Pretty arrogant"

"Everything I do is the environment"

"If you make a gun, you are either going to sell it or you are going to use it. And if you're going to sell it, someone else is going to use it"

"Art doesn't alter things. It points things out, but it doesn't alter them. It can't, no matter what a painter wants to do"

"We save paradise by an intense education program where you get people that you can trust to talk sanely about the environment and hope that the message will get through"

"If you can't protect yourself with talk, you won't be alive to protect yourself with guns"

"You can't make people respond"

"I think it would be better if nobody owned anything, but they didn't starve. Had enough paint and enough pianos and everything else"

"I stress the uniqueness of the Australian landscape and its metaphysical and mythic content"

"Disco dancing is just the steady thump of a giant moron knocking in an endless nail"

"I've been very physical my whole life. I went out hiking and camping for days in the Australian forest, and when I trained at drama school for three years, we did a whole lot on stage-fighting techniques. And I was a dancer from 5 to 18, so I have a memory for choreography"

"I have a strong dance background. I danced from age five till 18, and that helps a lot. Doing a fight routine is like doing a dance routine"

"Sarah is very strong. She's really intelligent and she's very physically capable. I like to put that into my own life as well"

"I'm pretty gross. When I talk I can be gross and crude"

"I love watching a good, freaky horror movie. I love it. It's one of my favorite things to do, to go and see at the cinema. Just to tune out and be freaked out"

"I know that one of the distinguishing things was I looked like I could hold a gun, even though I'd never held one before and I'm physically able to do the martial arts and all that stuff"

"I loved school, I loved putting on my uniform and doing homework every day. I was one of those good students that the teachers liked. I guess that's got to be a pretty nerdy, geeky part of me"

"The English press, are so nosy, and the English seem to love that eavesdropping"