There wasn't a lot of music in the home when I was growing up. We didn't have a piano or anything like that but my grandmother, had been a well-known piano teacher.

One of the things about federal politics is that it has been remarkably free of corruption.

I joined the Young Liberals when I was 16 and it was a good way for me to understand how the Liberal Party worked and to learn basic political skills and techniques.

The arts are part of a nation's identity, they are part of a nation's soul and when we look at a country from the eyes of people overseas they are part of a nations branding in the world as it were.

The tyranny of distance is such an important element of policy and the allocation of resources.

It is a necessary precondition for the success of a referendum that there should be broad community consensus and bipartisan support for it.

The crime of bribery of foreign officials is an offence under the Commonwealth Criminal Code.

I don't really know a lot about these 'anti-protest' laws. I'm only vaguely aware of them, but I don't have enough detailed knowledge about them to comment.

I was President of the Queensland Young Liberals in 1981.

I was interested in politics since the age of 14.

There have been 44 constitutional referenda in Australia and only eight have succeeded.

Devour your fear.

Roughly speaking: to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing.

Hannah ran past, beaming. I remember that feeling--when you're a kid and it's your birthday and for one day everyone makes you feel like the most special person in the world.

The kernel of truth sank into the fertile soil of [her] imagination, possibilities for a happy resolution suggesting themselves in vague flashes of potential and promise...

And he smote the Balrog upon the mountainside.

If you can't forgive yourself, you think you're never going to be able to forgive yourself.

There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.

Language is an impure medium. Speech is public property and words are the soiled products, not of nature, but of society, which circulates and uses them for a thousand different ends.

I wanted to write a story that demanded the viewer's attention.

The Indo-Canadian community has been a microcosm of the people of Indian origin living abroad besides reflecting Indias diversity.