2049 Quotes by Australian authors

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Australian voices speak in a dry, flinty music: wry understatement cut with sudden tenderness. These quotes carry the heat-haze of distance, the grit of red earth, and the salt from a restless coast. They honor Country and kin, memory and survival, while skewering pomposity with a larrikin grin. Expect stories that bend toward resilience, fairness, and frank talk, whether whispered under gum trees or tossed across a crowded tram. The tone is spare, playful, and fierce, with humor used as both shield and compass.

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

Clive James, Author

Clive James

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

Betty Cuthbert, Athlete

Betty Cuthbert

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

Betty Cuthbert, Athlete

Betty Cuthbert

"Geez, all that money we waste on space exploration; just think how many bombs that would buy!"

Craig Bruce, Writer

Craig Bruce

"When anarchy is declared, the first thing we do, let's kill all the anarchists"

Craig Bruce, Writer

Craig Bruce

"You can't make people respond"

Arthur Boyd, Artist

Arthur Boyd

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

Arthur Boyd, Artist

Arthur Boyd

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

Arthur Boyd, Artist

Arthur Boyd

"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"

Arthur Boyd, Artist

Arthur Boyd

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

Arthur Boyd, Artist

Arthur Boyd

"Everything I do is the environment"

Arthur Boyd, Artist

Arthur Boyd

"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"

Arthur Boyd, Artist

Arthur Boyd

"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"

Arthur Boyd, Artist

Arthur Boyd

"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"

Yvonne Strahovski, Actress

Yvonne Strahovski

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

Yvonne Strahovski, Actress

Yvonne Strahovski

"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"

Yvonne Strahovski, Actress

Yvonne Strahovski

"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"

Yvonne Strahovski, Actress

Yvonne Strahovski

"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"

Yvonne Strahovski, Actress

Yvonne Strahovski

"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"

Yvonne Strahovski, Actress

Yvonne Strahovski

"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"

Yvonne Strahovski, Actress

Yvonne Strahovski

"We'd have to suck away at oxygen canisters between songs just so that we could keep playing"

Michael Hutchence, Musician

Michael Hutchence

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

Michael Hutchence, Musician

Michael Hutchence

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

Michael Hutchence, Musician

Michael Hutchence

"There is an integrity to INXS, in the music, that makes it worthwhile"

Michael Hutchence, Musician

Michael Hutchence

"Mel's Diner in L.A. - they are my favorite hamburgers. I could eat there every day. They are ridiculous"

Liam Hemsworth, Actor

Liam Hemsworth

"Its highest point was The Worst Journey in the World. Then you see this decline, and this harking back, using the 19th-century form when we're not in the 19th century. That way of writing a book about the world out there - you just can't do it anymore"

Robyn Davidson, Writer

"You apply the skills you use to produce your own book to make an anthology. Shaping. Rhythm"

Robyn Davidson, Writer

"The genre has moved into this commercial aspect of itself, and ignored this extraordinarily rich literature that's filed everywhere else except under travel"

Robyn Davidson, Writer

"I just don't see myself as a travel writer. I can't. I don't"

Robyn Davidson, Writer

"That odd idea that one person can go to a foreign part and in this rather odd voice describe it to the folks back home doesn't make much sense in the post-colonial world"

Robyn Davidson, Writer

"Yeah, for some reason parrots have to bite me. That's their job. I don't know why that is. They've nearly torn my nose off. I've had some really bad parrot bites"

Steve Irwin, Scientist

"Every cent we earn from Crocodile Hunter goes straight back into conservation. Every single cent"

Steve Irwin, Scientist

"Obviously it's my second senior event, and I'm tired obviously coming back from the British Open, from surgery, which was priority No. 1, did that successfully, and each week since the British Open I've felt in pretty good control of my golf game"

Greg Norman, Athlete

Greg Norman

"When you see that many people with a smile on their face, then you must be doing something right"

Greg Norman, Athlete

Greg Norman

"I owe a lot to my parents, especially by mother and my father"

Greg Norman, Athlete

Greg Norman

"The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem"

John Peers

"Music stops you from thinking"

Peter Weir, Director

"Trust in yourself. Your perceptions are often far more accurate than you are willing to believe"

Claudia Black, Actress

Claudia Black

"I don't think nationalism is alone holding the field; it's in contention with a lot of different things"

Peter Singer, Philosopher

"My boyfriend's idea of a lesson was to take me on a black diamond run in the middle of a hail storm and say, 'Go!' Ski patrol had to escort me to another lift to get me down the mountain. No, that wasn't humiliating, not at all"

Claudia Black, Actress

Claudia Black

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