Australians Quotes & Sayings

I think Australians like a bit of vulgarity. — Julian Clary

I could not eat a kangaroo. But many fine Australians do. Those with cookbooks as well as boomerangs Prefer him in tasty kangaroo-meringues. — Ogden Nash

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert needed ABBA to invent gay Australians. The — Chuck Klosterman

I think Americans are probably getting sick of us Australians trying to take their jobs. — Phoebe Tonkin

Has anyone ever noticed that when ethnic Australians excel in sport they are heralded "Aussies"; but when something goes wrong they are thrown the "go back to where you came from" line? WAKE UP RACISTS. — Miya Yamanouchi

It is the manner of (Cadel) Evan's triumph that has particularly endeared him to his countrymen and women ... Australians place a premium on persistence in adversity ... His win in the year's tour was much more than an exhibition of pure sporting talent; it was a display of grit that will long be treasured by all who saw it. — Paul Ramadge

Australia's treatment of her Aboriginal people will be the thing on which the world will judge Australia and Australians - Not just now, but in the greater perspective of history. — Gough Whitlam

For us Australians, Singapore also represents sacred soil. Almost 2000 Australians died here in the defense of your island country and our neighborhood. — Michael Jeffery

The floods and fires and storms and droughts that Australia has suffered in the last few years have left no doubt in many Australians' minds about just how much is a stake in a super-heated world. — Jeff Goodell

Australians aren't really that crazy; in L.A. you get a little crazier. From my experience at least, Aussies don't really care that much about celebrities or things like that. — Brody Jenner

Jane, who is much better at reading guide books than I am (I always read them on the way back to see what I missed, it's often quite a shock), discovered something wonderful in the book she was reading. Did I know, she asked, that Brisbane was originally founded as a penal colony for convicts who committed new offences after they had arrived in Australia ? I spent a good half hour enjoying this single piece of information. It was wonderful. There we British sat, poor grey sodden creatures, huddling under our grey northern sky that seeped like a rancid dish cloth, busy sending those we wished to punish most severely to sit in bright sunlight on the coast of the Tasman Sea at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef and maybe do some surfing too. No wonder the Australians have a particular kind of smile that they reserve exclusively for use on the British. — Douglas Adams

They (the youth of Australia) are out there clamouring in all forms of voice, and they are not so much hedging us older Australians aside as saying, 'For heaven's sake, listen to us and empower us to help drive this country towards a wonderful future.' — Peter Cosgrove

I think Australians do well here because we feel a bit naughty, like we're in America and if they only knew how much fun we were having, we'd all get thrown out, you know. — Melissa George

Australian troops had, at Milne Bay, inflicted on the Japanese their first undoubted defeat on land. Some of us may forget that, of all the allies, it was the Australians who first broke the invincibility of the Japanese army. — William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

Australianism' means single-minded determination to win - to win within the laws but, if necessary, to the last limit within them. It means where the 'impossible' is within the realm of what the human body can do, there are Australians who believe that they can do it - and who have succeeded often enough to make us wonder if anything is impossible to them. It means they have never lost a match - particularly a Test match - until the last run is scored or their last wicket down. — John Arlott

It was time to take the best bits from them all and build something delicious: the spirituality of the Hindus, the community spirit and family ties of the Muslims, the ancient wisdom of the Chinese, the love of freedom and equality of the Afro-Caribbeans, the work ethic of the Jews, the bloody-mindedness and wry humour of the Australians, the blarney of the Irish, the passion of the Scots, the unorthodoxy of the Welsh, combined with our own English love of justice, fair play and democracy. Put them all together and you had a vision for the future, a direction, which Bokononism could exploit. — Bernard Hare

fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers. — Yuval Noah Harari

It only takes a room of Americans for the English and Australians to realise how much we have in common. — Stephen Fry

It's an interesting thing in this country. I haven't won a gold medal, yet Australians still take me into their houses and hearts, they know my name and they care. I think Aussies like the little Aussie battler and the person who will stand up for their rights and I've never been short of a word, especially with officialdom. — Raelene Boyle

Australians are pretty blunt and we say things how they really are. — Charlie Bell

Australians always want everyone to be average, as if the best thing you can do is fit in. — Poppy King

In Western Australia, minerals are being dug up from Aboriginal land and shipped to China for a profit of a billion dollars a week. In this, the richest, 'booming' state, the prisons bulge with stricken Aboriginal people, including juveniles whose mothers stand at the prison gates, pleading for their release. The incarceration of black Australians here is eight times that of black South Africans during the last decade of apartheid. — John Pilger

What's fascinating about the Australians is they have this quality that they are impervious to majesty. They're not awed. — Tom Hooper

I know that people from New Zealand don't ever wanna be confused with being Australians. — Sydney Sierota

Australians can trust me to get the job done. They can have the confidence that in the heart of the circumstances I will win through in their interests no matter how relentlessly negative the leader of the opposition is. — Julia Gillard

Australia objects to the mini-skirt not on moral but on economic grounds. Australians are no prudes and the lovely, healthy, sporty Australian girls have no reason to hide their knees and thighs. However, the mini-skirt is disastrous for the wool-trade. — George Mikes

Australians were very practical, Emily had found. They did things quickly and purposefully and to the absolute minimum standard required. It was refreshing and guenuine but sometimes led to situations like building a town around a hole. — Max Barry

Among many other reforms, Australians pioneered the secret ballot and universal suffrage. — Richard Flanagan

Australia! Australians! Surely it's still full of Magwitch-types, lumbering oafs with shaven pates and broken noses on the run from whatever law there is, chucking kangaroo heads on the barbie as they read their awful bush poetry. — Dave Franklin

I thought I was clever by greeting casting agents in my Australian accent and then switching to an American one during the performance. But the Australian accent seemed to put them off. Now it's the opposite; they love Australians. And with my thick Californian accent I now have a problem convincing them I'm Australian. — Jonathan LaPaglia

She decided to donate blood to the Red Cross; she wanted to donate a quart a week and her blood would be in the veins of Australians and Fighting French and Chinese, all over the whole world, and it would be as though she were close kin to all of these people. She could hear the army doctors saying that the blood of Frankie Addams was the reddest and the strongest blood that they had ever known. — Carson McCullers

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

In this role my wish is to build our understanding of what it means to protect the rights and human dignity of all Australians. Upholding human rights is about looking out for each other, taking the idea of fairness seriously. And it goes to the heart of who we are as a nation. — Mick Dodson

It was easy not to like the other foreigners. I wondered how I'd fallen in with such a band of freaks. There were so many odd, wandering types
a host of bent Australians, warped British, tainted Canadians, tormented runaway Americans. (I considered myself fairly well balanced among this cast, but then look what became of me.) I'd expected it to a certain degree, but I was still surprised. Most of them seemed like misfits. Only a few content. But all of us found teaching work with astounding ease. It didn't matter that, on the whole, we were ragged and suspect because the demand for English in Korea was so great that almost anyone was accepted. — Cullen Thomas

I'd desperately love England to beat the Australians. — Stuart Law

I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging from the moral and physical character of the first generation of Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. — Henry David Thoreau

Like, Australians definitely don't walk around dressed up in blackface going, 'Ha-ha.' — Chris Lilley

For Indigenous Australians, equal rights and citizenship have not always translated into full participation in Australian society. All Indigenous Australians have only been counted in the census since the 1967 Referendum. Even so, State protection and welfare laws continued to control the lives of Indigenous Australians and denied them equal rights, well into the 1970's. — Jackie Huggins

Australians are very unfair in this way. They spend half of any conversation insisting that the country's dangers are vastly overrated and that there's nothing to worry about, and the other half telling you how six months ago their Uncle Bob was driving to Mudgee when a tiger snake slid out from under the dashboard and bit him on the groin, but that it's okay now because he's off the life support machine and they've discovered he can communicate with eye blinks. — Bill Bryson

First Lord of the Admiralty, long enough to engineer what an anti-Churchillian would say was an epic and unparalleled military disaster - a feat of incompetent generalship that made the Charge of the Light Brigade look positively slick. It was an attempt to outflank the stalemate on the Western Front that not only ended in humiliation for the British armed forces; it cost the lives of so many Australians and New Zealanders that to this day their 1915 expedition to Turkey is the number-one source of pom-bashing and general anti-British feeling among Antipodeans. — Boris Johnson

Way back in October 2007, I had urged thousands of Australians to vote for Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett's Labor Party. Why? Because they promised to get tough on illegal Japanese whaling. — Paul Watson

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia. — Kevin Rudd

Citizenship has not delivered Indigenous Australians the same quality of life other Australians expect. Basic human rights involve health, housing, education, employment, economic opportunity, and equality before the law, and respect for cultural identity and cultural diversity. These human rights must be capable of being enjoyed otherwise they are empty gestures. — Jackie Huggins

Jamie Keehn, our second Australian punter. Again, you have to learn the language. You just can't speak to those guys. You have to know how to speak Australian ... Australians have a higher voice. When you just speak regular English, it doesn't quite get across. Of course, we've had experience with our Australians, so we're pretty comfortable with adjusting our dialect so that it fits the ability to communicate. — Les Miles

People have asked me why are Australians and Brits so good at American accents, and it's quite simple. We grew up listening to the American sound on our TV. That's why American actors have a hard time with foreign accents. — Dominic Purcell

There is no doubt that Iraqis, like Australians and Americans, love and desire freedom. However, if freedom doesn't mean the right to complete self-determination, unfettered by interests other than one's own, then that freedom is less than worthless - it's oppression. — Amir Butler

Those of you who have spent time with Australians know that we are not given to overstatement. By nature we are laconic speakers and by conviction we are realistic thinkers. — Julia Gillard

Maybe I should have played two more Australians and two less Davis Cups? I could have had more majors and still have three Davis Cups when most people don't have one. — John McEnroe

If I had to take hell, I would use the Australians to take it and the New Zealanders to hold it. — Erwin Rommel

There is a very special place in the Australian psyche for sport. It is one of the pillars of the Australian way of life. You don't really understand what makes the Australian nation tick unless you understand the great affection Australians have for sport. — John Howard

On average, Australians watch more than three hours of television a day, compared with 12 minutes a day spent by the average couple talking to each other. — Hugh Mackay

Most Australians live in the cities on the east coast, where contact between black and white occurred as much as 200 years earlier than on the west coast - and where 95 percent of Australians are able to live 95 percent of their lives without ever seeing an Aboriginal face. — Phillip Noyce

Australians and the British are very similar: If you try and stand out in any way, and you try to reach for success, someone is gonna be there to cut you down. — Joel Edgerton

I suppose, because I am a sportsman and travel all over Australia, I see every day Australians doing small and large and often unnoticed deeds; many times I thought how nice it would be for them to be recognised, so I hope somehow that in receiving this honour that I represent these people. — Steve Waugh

In many traditions, the world was sung into being: Aboriginal Australians believe their ancestors did so. In Hindu and Buddhist thought, Om was the seed syllable that created the world. — Jay Griffiths

One of my theories about why we've been cranky is Australians have been forced to focus on politics or party politics a little bit more than they normally would. — Yitzhak Rabin

As Australians, we must not leave our children worse off. That's not fair. That is not our way. — Joe Hockey

But the Australians, what do the Australians do? How do they structure their landscape? For a start they postulate a primal builder, whose work they presume only to interpret: the mythical animal who was active in the "dreamtime," that is, a primal era, beyond verification, as the name indicates. A time of sleep. The visible landscape is an effect of causes that are to be found in the dreamtime. For example, the snake that dragged itself over this plain creating these undulations, etc., etc. These.. curious Aborigines make sure their eyes are closed while events take place, which allows them to see places as records of events. But what they see is a kind of dream, and they wake into a reverie, since the real story (the snake, not the hills) happened while they were asleep. — Cesar Aira

It's always a fine line. If you overdo (aggression) it's 'ugly Australians', but if you have a smile on your face it's Australia being too nice. — Brett Lee

It's always a pleasure to perform for people who love country music. And Australians definitely fall into that category. Each time I go back, I learn something new about the country, and I get to see some of the most beautiful places on the planet. — Joe Nichols

People who are following their dreams inspire me. I train at this relatively new gym in West Hollywood called Training Mate. It's owned by a former Australian football player named Luke Milton. The classes are mostly taught by other Australians that are just like Luke: fit, funny, cute, and approachable. Now they're talking about opening another location. He will open another location and be successful because he's following his dream. People like him inspire me because they make me think I can do it too. — Dayna Devon

If you're Australian, you feel it in your bones because you're at odds with everybody else, except other Australians, in the sense that people always seem to be behaving strangely. People always seem to be behaving the wrong way, in a different way. You say things and there are silences. — Nick Cave

At the last census it indicated that about 22 per cent of Australians were born overseas. — Julie Bishop

I am deeply committed to the cause of Indigenous Australians, and not just because of the Apology, but the big challenges which lie ahead in closing the gap. — Kevin Rudd

Solemn Australians think that an interest in design is a superficial and trivial interest. This is actually an improvement, they used to think it effeminate and vaguely immoral. — Robin Boyd

I'm not the first player to have their home Grand Slam and not perform. There have been a few Australians and French players, you name it. It's a tough thing. But it is one of those things. Would I rather have a Grand Slam in my country than not? I would. — Samantha Stosur

These are challenging and exciting times. No previous generation of Australians has ever had such an opportunity. No other country in the world has such an opportunity now. So long as we retain faith in ourselves, practise tolerance and reward initiative, we should be in no doubt about succeeding. — John Yu

We are all here now and we have to solve our differences and live together as Australians ... I will use the title you have honoured me with to bring the Australian people together ... Together we can build a remarkable country, the envy of the rest of the world. — Lowitja O'Donoghue

Faith is important to me. It's important to millions of Australians. It helps to shape who I am. It helps to shape my values. But it must never, never dictate my politics. — Tony Abbott

Deep down, the boringly pragmatic Liberal Party has a sunnier view of human nature than the passionately idealistic Labor Party because we are prepared to put more trust in the common sense and decency of our fellow Australians. — Tony Abbott

Australians and New Zealanders don't talk about Gallipoli in terms of invasion. I started talking about it and using that word and at first there were a few people who were getting upset in the same way that in any country, if you work for a newspaper you know exactly the dude you can go and talk to get a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to something to do with the military. — Russell Crowe

The Philippine races, like all the Malays, do not succumb before the foreigner, like the Australians, the Polynesians and the Indians of the New World. — Jose Rizal

Sport has long occupied a special place in the hearts of Australians, and today the nation welcomes a new champion to the pantheon. Cadel Evans, cyclist extraordinaire. — Paul Ramadge

Austin - it's a stimulating center. In this conversation, the very first two questions were talking about my kind of wanderlust and my adventures. Some people at my time in life travel forever. I don't know whether it's the British or the Australians - whoever it is, you can kind of stagger into some sort of far-off bastion in the middle of nowhere, and you'll find someone from Britain or someone from Australia or maybe an American. — Robert Plant

Yet if the Howard years changed little in the law, they had a huge effect on the culture. Most Australians certainly became wealthier, but in the process they became more materialistic and self-centred. Howard constantly held up the ideal of mateship, but in practice he was much more concerned with individuals taking responsibility for themselves than in fostering genuine co-operation within communities, let alone in a wider international context. Indeed, much of his political success derived from setting groups against each other, from bolstering fear and loathing. — Mungo MacCallum

Sometimes when Australians go overseas, it's as though the 'Aussie' is refined out of them. I don't know why. It's never happened to me, because I'm really proud of it. I'm not embarrassed about where I'm from or who I am any more. I know who I am. I don't fit in everywhere, but I know where I do fit in. — Rachael Taylor

There was one thing no one considered, however: Australia was populated by Australians. While the rest of us were trying to adapt to a world that suddenly seemed bent on eradicating the human race, the Australians had been dealing with a hostile environment for centuries. They looked upon our zombie apocalypse, and they were not impressed. — Mira Grant

Have a look at the results when Australians are asked if they agree or disagree with the statement: 'It is better for the family if the husband is the principal breadwinner outside the home and the wife has primary responsibility for the home and children.' In 1986, just over 55 per cent of men agreed with that proposition. That proportion swan-dived down to about 30 per cent by 2001, but by 2005, it had gone up again, to 41.4 per cent. Women subscribe to that view less enthusiastically than men on the whole, but they too have waxed and waned over the last 30 years. In 1986, 33 per cent of them thought it was better for men to work and women to keep house. By 2001, that had dipped to 19 per cent. But by 2005, it had bobbed back up to 36.4 per cent.17 — Annabel Crabb

This game is something Australians really look forward to. — Matthew Hayden

Well, Australians should speak for the national interests of Australia, and whatever role former Australian prime ministers may have, one of the things you do is speak frankly about the country as you see the country's best interests, you know? — Paul Keating

As young Australians, the value of teamwork has been instilled in us throughout our schooling. — Alexandra Adornetto

With increasing frequency and growing vehemence, you hear people saying they are ashamed to be Australians. — Hugh Mackay

If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the Australian coast, it is a political question. — Richard Flanagan

In a world as competitive as ours, the child who does not get a decent education is condemned to the fringes of society. I think all Australians agree that this is intolerable. So we must demand as much of our schools as we do of our sports teams - and ensure that they keep the Australian dream alive for every child. — Rupert Murdoch

I think any time you lose an Ashes series, especially with the hype and build-up surrounding it and the pride we have as Australians playing against England, that's always hard to take. — Ricky Ponting

All Australians are an uneducated and unruly mob. — Douglas Jardine

There is a timelessness about sport. Like music and art, it is a quality that cuts across generations and nations. It provides a link between Australians of succeeding generations whether urging on a Donald Bradman or cheering and rejoicing in the America's Cup victory. Call it the spirit, the soul of sport - it will be in 2001 the same as it was in 1901. — Greg Hartung

If a British guy saw someone at the wheel of a Rolls- Royce, he'd say 'come the revolution and we'll take that away from you, mate', where the American would say 'one day I'll have one of those, when I have worked hard enough'. It's unfortunate we Australians inherited the British mentality. — Kerry Packer

I think that young Australians ought to be taking language education much more seriously. I mean, you know, every day I'm meeting people with expertise, ability and talent in fields where I want to learn so much more; science, for example. — Quentin Bryce

If anything, global response to the Rising only confirmed something that many Australians had quietly believed for quite some time: If forced to live in Australia for a year, most of the world's population would simply curl up in a fetal ball and die of terror. — Mira Grant

When he breathed he truly was Australia's greatest white elder and friend without peer to the original Australians. — Noel Pearson

These Australians hear the whispering in their heart and know it can only be silenced by coming to terms with the original owners of this beautiful and bounteous land. Many Australians of goodwill sense that a moment for national leadership has slipped past us and is gone. — Patrick Dodson

The Australians, it seems to me, thrive on their remoteness from the world and see it as a way of keeping up a code of "No worries, mate," while peddling their oddities to visitors: nonconformity is at once a fact of life for many, and a selling point. — Pico Iyer

I am thoroughly satisfied that smoking is detrimental to the intelligence of Australians who I notice now are beginning to look sickly, pale and intellectually destitute. — King O'Malley

Hey, any idea why Australians speak something that sounds deceptively like English but isn't? I mean, I'm trying to figure out why I can't seem to converse with another human being who speaks the same language as I do. — Elle Lothlorien

Today, despite different backgrounds, those of us who are willing to respect the traditions and history of this country can join together under one national banner as Australians. This is the kind of unity that the conservative will embrace, not the superficial and divisive 'diversity' talk of the radical, who prefers to constantly re-create the nation according to some momentary fashionable utopian image and denounces all patriotic sentiment as jingoist and bigoted. — Cory Bernardi

New Zealand was colonised initially by those Australians who had the initiative to escape. — Robert Muldoon

This is another world to the ones most Australians know. It was explained by my father once that it's like a blanket on the ground. We, the uninitiated, only see the blanket. Lift it up and that's what our elders ... see - the real thing - a world most of us will never know or understand. Through their paintings, artists ... offer us a glimpse of the world of dreams where the past, present and the future link. — Hetti Perkins

We moved, and there was a golden era in the '40s when we were so conscious of who we were as Australians. — Graeme Murphy

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country. — Kevin Rudd