OPTIMISM, enthusiasm, confidence against fear, prejudice, conformity - that is his enduring message to the men and women of Australia. Never more than now.

I never stopped loving her, " he said. "I couldn’t let her go. Once the past gets you in its clutches, well, you’ve got to want to fight to be released. I never did. That was my mistake.

Today we know that World War II began not in 1939 or 1941 but in the 1920's and 1930's when those who should have known better persuaded themselves that they were not their brother's keeper.

I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed.

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

Mike Nichols asked if I would do The Birdcage. Mike and I are dear friends but he had never offered me a feature role in a movie. My television career opened other doors for me

Living without protecting what needs to be protected is the same as death.

The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.

When it comes down to it, it really is the little things that count most.

Patience and discipline can make you look foolishly out of touch until they make you look prudent and even prescient

I am so fed up and joyless that not only have I nothing to fill my soul, I cannot even conceive of anything that could possibly satisfy it - alas, not even the bliss of heaven.