Australia quotes. Aphorisms. ideas, thoughts on Australia and Australian people. Quotations on Australian culture, traditions and history by famous authors, writers and artists.
In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime.
Phyllis McGinley
In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.
Bruce Beresford
My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet. She’s now in a maximum security twilight home in Australia.
Dame Edna Everage
In Japan, Australia, and England there is such a strong youth culture.
Marc Newson
In particular, Australia, because of its ancient geography, soil profile and distinctive weather patterns, is more adversely affected by climate variability than some other continents.
Peter Garrett
In the early 1930s, flying from England to Australia was the longest flight in the world. It was considered extremely dangerous and hazardous, pushing pilots to the limits of mechanical skills and human endurance. Aviation was young.
Mary Garden
It doesn’t really seem any different anywhere. I’d say it seems like we’re biggest in Australia. It’s just that we’ve always been this underground band and for some reason in the last month has been starting to go overground.
Jon Crosby
It feels like it’s just starting in America and the UK. It’s great to have a loyal fanbase in Australia and New Zealand. People in America say how polished our band are, but that didn’t happen overnight; that came from doing all this touring back home.
Kimbra
It is a matter of public shame that while we have now commemorated our hundredth anniversary, not one in every ten children attending Public schools throughout the colonies is acquainted with a single historical fact about Australia.
Henry Lawson
It so happened that I was on a German sailing vessel on the way to Australia when the ship was captured, and on the high seas I was made prisoner by the French.
Fritz Sauckel
It’s not a country of articulate people, sophisticated people. There’s too little subtlety. Men and women don’t enjoy each other very much in Australia. I don’t find very many men sexy in Australia. Of course, I’m married and out of it, but still.
Judy Davis
Italy is definitely where I feel most at home, or alternatively, living in total wilderness, in the bush in Australia.
Noah Taylor
Leaving Australia was the hardest thing I have ever done.
Barry Gibb
Mmm, well that whole thing about having to look tough has never left Australia.
Robert Forster
Most Indians go into education. Their parents just push them into education like parents in Australia push them into sports.
Mahesh Bhupathi
My father died in 1930, but if you told him or anybody almost in that time that you’d be able to sit back in England and watch a cricket game in Australia, they’d have you put in the loony bin.
Desmond Llewelyn
My kids started school, so having a strong base in Melbourne has been a key priority. I’m not daunted by the travel. People say, ‘It’s so far to Australia,’ and I say, ‘You get on the plane, you eat well, you sleep, you wake up – and you’re there.’
Geoffrey Rush
My parents and my grandfather on my mom’s side would travel the earth. They went to Australia and China, and they went to probably every soccer game I ever played.
Brandi Chastain
My point is this, the Government made this decision to ban totally beef exports into Indonesia, even to compliant abattoirs and this will have enormous consequences for the beef cattle industry across Australia.
Julie Bishop
My point was that the war was intrinsically wrong, and as a result of our participation we haven’t improved Australia’s security but created a greater danger at home and abroad.
Bob Hawke
National film industries tend to move in cycles. In Australia right now, we’re on a high, a feeling of potential, which as yet shows no sign of flagging. But the word “industry” is misleading. A small national cinema has no industry in the Hollywood sense.
Peter Weir
New Zealanders who emigrate to Australia raise the IQ of both countries.
Robert Muldoon
Obviously all of us have thought about Vietnam, particularly in my generation in Australia that were part of conscription and fought there. Our friends came back, forever changed. So there were a lot of questions.
Phillip Noyce
To live in Australia permanently is rather like going to a party and dancing all night with one’s mother.
Barry Humphries
To win in Australia, for me, has to be the ultimate success because the Aussies live for sport.
Ian Botham
Tobacco companies are legally operating entities in Australia. If the Government thinks that they should not make donations to political parties, well then they should ban them operating as legally structured entities in Australia.
Julie Bishop
Travelling is definitely something that your average 17-year-old doesn’t get to do. One week we’re in Japan, one week we’re in Australia, one week we’re back home going to football games.
Solange Knowles
Way of life in Australia focuses more on the outdoors.
Thomas Muster
We absolutely believed in Heaven and Hell, Purgatory, and even Limbo. I mean, they were actually closer to us than Australia or Canada, that they were real places.
John McGahern
We don’t have any sailors in Australia, we have rowers.
Ben Lexcen
We had to leave Australia to become international stars.
Barry Gibb
We moved to Australia for two years though and that was a little bit tough trying to fit in.
Kelly Preston
We must have as clear a picture as we can of the Australia that we want to achieve at the end of that time.
Lionel K. Murphy
We were a Western civilisation, an English speaking civilisation, both NZ and Australia, and we had all these influences coming from both Great Britain and America to us; sending us their culture in the shape and form of movies and television.
Richard O’Brien
Well they’re very, very genuine concerns at present as to the status of the 800 people who are to be sent by Australia to Malaysia. There’s concern about the status of asylum seekers in Malaysia generally, but there’s concern about the status of the 800 to be sent.
Julie Bishop
Well, I’m not going to go into what the letter says, because the police are looking at that. But as you say it’s in Bahasa. But of course that’s not to suggest that the letter came from outside of Australia. It came from in Australia. It came from Victoria.
Alexander Downer
Well, we know that people in Australia love the idea of both Impulse and Virgin Blue getting up and adding a bit of competition, and it’s fun to be able to deliver it.
Richard Branson
When I left school I went on trip around the world – I only got as far as Australia, but like a bloody fool I cut it short because of a girl. It’s probably one of my big regrets in life.
Ben Nicholson
When I left school I went to Australia for a year and worked in the drama department of a school in Perth.
James D’arcy
When I was 24 I went to Nigeria and it was such a culture shock, growing up in Australia and suddenly being the only white man in this unit full of black men.
Bruce Beresford
When I was rising eighteen I persuaded my parents to let me return to Australia and at least see whether I could adapt myself to life on the land before going up to Cambridge.
Patrick White
Whereas there’s a wealth of galleries in Australia, everyone’s got a gallery in Australia or wants your work. Because the art scene is smaller in Indonesia, there’s not so much competition.
Andrew Jack
Who says Australia offers not a home for every poor Englishman, or any other countryman that finds his way to our shores? And what sort of thanks do we get for it?
Henry Lawson
With just about every player in Australia, his whole goal and ambition is to play for Australia. That’s why they’re playing first class cricket. It’s just a different attitude.
Shane Warne
Yeah, I think it’s an absolute disaster that Australia, the government, allowed kangaroo culling.
Steve Irwin
You can be tops in Australia and be unheard of everywhere else.
Barry Gibb
A 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 Noyce
All for Australia and the Empire.
Joseph Lyons
Americans are the most generous country on the planet. I’ve worked in Europe, I’ve worked in Australia. There is no where else where you get absolutely no attitude for being a foreigner. If you do your job well, they embrace you.
Hugh Jackman
And also it was a process of, we lifted weights as well, in an effort to train my body to then be able to lift heavier weights when I got in Australia. So that was the first couple of months.
Brandon Routh
And I liked pluralist Australia. I got a taste for pluralist Australia. I like, I like Australians and I can’t believe that they’re going to go to hell because they tell a good dirty joke, you know.
Thomas Keneally
And living in Australia I am relatively well off.
Peter Garrett
And the reason for that I think is that in Australia our films don’t get the exposure, so the process is foremost. But anyway, I love being part of the team and hate being stuck in a corner somewhere.
Jacqueline McKenzie
And then once in Australia, I really hit the weights hard.
Brandon Routh
And where I grew up in Australia, surfing was a part of culture.
Marc Newson
Another time, we had three days off in Australia, so we went out of our way to fly to Ayres Rock.
Phil Collins
As we grew to love South Australia, we felt that we were in an expanding society, still feeling the bond to the motherland, but eager to develop a perfect society, in the land of our adoption.
Catherine Helen Spence
At 15 I auditioned for 42nd Street in Australia. Dein Perry was in that show. I actually got the job but I couldn’t do it because I was only 15. Legally I needed to have another 15-year-old to cover consecutive nights.
Adam Garcia
At the end of my trial, I was rather hoping the judge would send me to Australia for the rest of my life.
Jeffrey Archer
Australia and Canada were settled by adventurers, they had to break new ground. I think that is indelibly etched on our cultural spirit.
Tom Cochrane
Australia as a nation, as a set of cities and some regional centres, that project died a death and we didn’t get it up, but I still think there’s merit in that.
Susan Oliver
Australia has an increasingly multicultural society.
Julie Bishop
Australia integrated the – brought on the ships and unleashed in the society the dogs of sectarianism, which had existed in other places – in Glasgow, in Liverpool and of course in Ireland, north and south.
Thomas Keneally
Australia is a huge rest home, where no unwelcome news is ever wafted on to the pages of the worst newspapers in the world.
Germaine Greer
Australia is about as far away as you can get. I like that.
Andre Benjamin
Australia is already a world leader in dementia research, treatment and care.
Julie Bishop
Australia 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 Sturt
Australia is so cool that it’s hard to even know where to start describing it. The beaches are beautiful; so is the weather. Not too crowded. Great food, great music, really nice people. It must be a lot like Los Angeles was many years ago.
Mary-Kate Olsen
Australia is the most isolated continent.
Jared Diamond
Australia was great. I would advise anybody to go there. In fact, if you couldn’t live here, Australia would be the place to live. It’s the most Americanized country that I’ve ever seen in the world.
Jerry Lawler
Because in Australia there really isn’t a lot to do. There aren’t a lot of opportunities.
Radha Mitchell
But 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 Gibson
But in practice Australia – the pluralism of Australia – sorry the sectarianism to an extent stopped at the time you took your uniform off after coming home from school.
Thomas Keneally
On the same line of reasoning, if Australians were to be Australians, or rather if Australians were as separate from any other nation as Australia from any other land, there would be no jealousy between them on England’s account.
Henry Lawson
Once again our cricketers have flattered to deceive in Australia.
Ted Dexter
Part of my plan was not only to introduce all useful animals that I possibly could into this part of Australia, but also the most valuable plants of every description.
George Grey
People forget that a huge proportion of our jobs still depend on agricultural production in Australia so of course there are exports. That’s easily overlooked.
John Anderson
Probably my mother’s life was prolonged beyond that of a long-lived family by her coming to Australia in middle life; and if I ever had any tendency to consumption, the climate must have helped me.
Catherine Helen Spence
Residuals from Australia, from the Mission Magic show, saved my butt. So there is a reason for everything.
Rick Springfield
She told fortunes for a living. It’s a wacky book and was great fun to write. It is very much a look at what life was like for women in Australia in the 1960’s.
Colleen McCullough
Since I’ve been in Playboy myself in Australia, I love it, and I think it’s really empowering and positive towards women, which is not a view that many women hold.
Dannii Minogue
So far, and today, everything felt really great. Now I am good to get on the plane and fly to Australia.
Kim Clijsters
So nonetheless given the importance that was placed on sport in Australia, I wanted to be part of that scene, particularly since I had felt very strongly in my early schooling being marginalised even in the Catholic school.
Thomas Keneally
Some books claim I have already clocked up a century of Grands Prix, but let me put the record straight. Australia will be my 100th start, and I aim to mark the milestone with a cracking performance. It could even be celebrated with a victory.
Damon Hill
South Australia has transformed. There has been a range of changes to our economy over the past 10 years in which we have genuinely set ourselves up for the future. I think we have to start behaving like that’s real and project a quiet confidence in the future of our state.
Jay Weatherill
South Australia was the first community to give the secret ballot for political elections.
Catherine Helen Spence
Tender Mercies is a very low-budget film, but it was a huge budget compared to anything I had done in Australia. My fee for Tender Mercies was something like five times all of my Australian films combined.
Bruce Beresford
Terrorists oppose nations such as the United States and Australia not because of what we have done but because of who we are and because of the values that we hold in common.
John Howard
The 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 McCullough
The markets where we’ve got real good presence are the older, more mature markets like Australia, and Western Europe – where we’ve only got 6,000 stores, compared to the US with 13,000.
Jim Cantalupo
The marshalling of those resources in order to obtain the maximum war effort for Australia, and a maximum degree of help and cooperation for Great Britain and the sister Dominions, is the primary objective of the new Department.
Harold Edward Holt
The Menzies Government, by its participation in the plans for the development of other nations, can see the virtue of planning for them but apparently cannot see the virtue of a plan for Australia.
Lionel K. Murphy
The Open Skies issue is something that’s ongoing and we understand that there are issues in Australia that need to be sorted out. It’s something that I think over time there’s an opportunity for us and we’ll work on that in a progressive way.
Jenny Shipley
The people of Australia would be staggered to learn that Australia has no national development plan.
Lionel K. Murphy
The strongest initiative that government can take to ensure Australia is prepared for population ageing, is to maintain a strong economy, and a secure nation.
Julie Bishop
The wickets I have played on for my whole career, most of them have been to suit fast bowlers in Australia.
Shane Warne
Then Mission Impossible brought me to Australia and that was great because I fell in love.
Jane Badler
There are better alternatives… Australia should be exporting its solar technology, not its uranium.
Bob Brown
There has always been quite a strong black and white art tradition in Australia, with quite a large contingent of cartoonists, given the size of the population.
Pat Oliphant
There’s a lot of exaggerated talk about CAFTA, but it’s actually a fairly routine trade agreement. Although it involves fairly small nations, they’re still more important trade partners than places like Australia or many other larger nations.
Ernest Istook
This book that I just wrote is going to be coming out very soon to Australia.
Ronald Biggs
Through the Young Men’s Christian Association and principally in Australia and North America, as well as in South America, I came into contact with families of these countries.
Fritz Sauckel
But 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 Mitchell
By March ’87 we’re down to seven thousand, by the end of the year we’re down to twelve hundred. The whole bottom just fell out of the market. It was bad for me because I was in Australia at the time.
Eddie Campbell
Certainly the Australians were buried in Korea. But I think that from Vietnam on, all the killed were brought home to America or to Australia, in our case.
Peter Scott
Did you know that Christmas Day is absolutely the best day to fly? It is. No crowded airports and crowded planes. I always flew to Australia. That’s what Christmas was for me – a plane journey to the next tournament.
Monica Seles
Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.
Charles M. Schulz
Even before the discovery of copper South Australia had turned the corner.
Catherine Helen Spence
Even if you go to Australia today, it’s very much like visiting a state you haven’t been to.
Pat Oliphant
Everyone knows how much Australia means to me. I try to get back here as much as I can, but normally it’s for work, so I’m in and out and jetlagged and stressed.
Kylie Minogue
Get Miramax to send me down to Australia. I’d like to see it.
Walter Hill
God bless America. God save the Queen. God defend New Zealand and thank Christ for Australia.
Russell Crowe
Here 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 Gillard
Hey bands, you’re all welcome to fly me to some exotic location and I’ll record you there, Y’know that right? You don’t have to come to this God forsaken place. Hope I can visit you all in Australia one of these days that would be hot! We’ll talk again soon.
Jim Diamond
I am busy touring all over Europe, Japan, and Australia.
Suzi Quatro
I did well as an actor in Australia, and then Paramount invited me over… to have a look at me.
Rod Taylor
I had a career for 25 years in Australia before I ever came to the United States.
Helen Reddy
I had a place in England and was commuting from England to Australia, which is pretty stupid, but after two years I sort of knew what I wanted to do, more or less.
Diane Cilento
I had learned what wealth was, and a great deal about production and exchange for myself in the early history of South Australia – of the value of machinery, of roads and bridges, and of ports for transport and export.
Catherine Helen Spence
I have this home in New York, I have a long-term relationship with my boyfriend, who’s from Australia, and I had this business that I had maintain. Even though I wasn’t actively shooting, there’s a lot of peripheral work.
Claire Danes
I have visited Australia several times, and I always try to make a point of going to Melbourne because it’s almost my favorite city there, Melbourne and Sydney. But I shouldn’t say that because I haven’t been everywhere-and I’m very fond of Perth too!
Jackie Collins
I have worked with this red all over the world – in Japan, California, France, Britain, Australia – a vein running round the earth. It has taught me about the flow, energy and life that connects one place with another.
Andy Goldsworthy
I just think Australia tends to make very good movies, so if someone hands me an Australian or an American film script I would guess the Australian film would be more intriguing.
Barbara Hershey
I knew she was from Australia and I knew that is where she started but I didn’t know if she was still popular there. I hope people understand we aren’t making fun of Kylie.
Wayne Coyne
I know it’s more five-star now than it was then, but it’s still a difficult tour. In the same way as India and Pakistan players find it difficult coming to Australia. People sometimes have difficulty believing that.
Richie Benaud
I love Australia. My dream would be to have a place to live there and be able to commute back and forth.
Sarah Michelle Gellar
I love having my birthday at Australia Zoo.
Bindi Irwin
I loved Australia. I was very successful there.
Todd Barry
I only get to spend about six to eight weeks in Australia now and I really miss my family and friends.
Karrie Webb
I pastor a very large church in western Australia. We have about – over 2,000 people, which we have a Bible school, community services, a lot of things linked with it. So my life’s very full today. Not enough days in the week.
Margaret Smith Court
I race historic muscle cars back in Australia, and that’s my hobby. And I try to race home as soon as I’ve finished a movie but don’t tell anyone.
Eric Bana
I remember my brother Nash had just directed me in ‘The Square,’ and I was sitting in Australia going: ‘No one’s called me about working for ages. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get another job.’
Joel Edgerton
I remember when we were in the World Cup in Australia and I had to win the singles against Tony Payne, best of seven legs, to win it. I was 2-0 down but ended up beating him 4-2.
Eric Bristow
I suffer much less than many of my colleagues. I am perfectly able to go to Australia and film within three hours of arrival.
David Attenborough
I suppose I was very disappointed that I was injured during training for Korea. In fact, I had an argument with a grenade and it won, and consequently I was forced to come back to Australia for twelve months.
Peter Scott
I thank all of those who weren’t born in this country for coming here and making a contribution to Australia. We are the least discriminatory country in the world, in my view.
John Howard
I think England will win a Test. My concern is Australia will probably win two.
Geoffrey Boycott
I think we are going to see exciting cricket all the way. We are watching the two best teams in the world-and I think England will eventually go on to pip Australia by a single Test.
Ian Botham
I want to give my compliments to Australia. Ever since your government paid a few million dollars for a Jackson Pollack painting, I figure that it must be a marvellous country.
Morton Feldman
I want you to know what I have told Australia’s Parliament in Canberra – what I told General Petraeus in Kabul – what I told President Obama in the Oval Office this week. Australia will stand firm with our ally the United States.
Julia Gillard
I was fortunate enough to visit a lot of beautiful places around the world. The most astonishing and memorable experiences were my trips to Africa and Australia.
Karolina Kurkova
I went to England in the ’70s, and I was in my early 20s. There was still a residue of that era of being an underclass or colonial. I assume it must have been a more aggressive and prominent attitude 40 years before that, because Australia internationally wasn’t regarded as having much cultural value. We were a country full of sheep and convicts.
Geoffrey Rush
I’d move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack.
Russell Crowe
I’m a big goofball, you know. Don’t tell anyone that, but I’m a big goofball. In Australia we call it a dag.
Hugh Jackman
I’m not a big fan of the gym, I do lots of outdoor aerobics – yoga, swimming, running – but I kinda hate talking about it. We have a term in Australia, it makes you sound like a wanker.
Ryan Kwanten
I’ve been arguing this for months. This is not our war. This is not a war we should be in. Australia’s better spending its time negotiating with North Korea.
John Hewson
I’ve been working at performing for five years now. I’ve been working in Australia and Spain and England. When I was only 15 or 16, 1 was performing in bars; I could have had legal problems, but it’s also the only way to get to know what music is all about.
Andy Gibb
I’ve done my time in being broke in Indonesia. Eating Goat soup. Australia’s a developed country, you’ve got a lot of taxes, rents are high and its quite difficult to survive as an artist especially when you are just coming up.
Andrew Jack
If I’d been a housemaid I’d have been the best in Australia – I couldn’t help it. It’s got to be perfection for me.
Nellie Melba
If 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 Hanson
If we wait for the U.S. to do something, we will be waiting for a very long time. It’s Europe, it’s Australia, it’s the other developed and middle developing countries that have got to do the job.
Susan George
If you got the DVD you can see that George Lucas has taken that person out, as well as the voice, and we shot this scene when we arrived in Australia during the actual filming of Episode 3.
Ian McDiarmid
In 1958, we decided to go to Australia. We were there for six months, and all the shows went well.
Ernie Wise
In 1975 Australia was producing things like Picnic at Hanging Rock, in other words films that I would consider still some of the finest products to come out of Australia. I think that our quality now is less than it was then.
Ann Macbeth
In a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back.
Thomas Keneally
Of all the important relationships that Australia has with other countries, none has been more greatly transformed over the last 10 years than our relationship with China.
John Howard
Of course we have Queen Elizabeth as head of state, but in many ways we are a kind of republic. We don’t have royals in Australia, so it was kind of unusual to run into those kind of people. But aside from that it was quite ordinary.
Mary Elizabeth Donaldson
Often there’s a BA crew, because half the time we stay at the same hotels, especially in Australia. I can remember spending quite a lot of time with crews around the pool there. They always make themselves known to us.
Phil Collins
You can also read:
Australia Day cultural considerations
