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Reflections
I went to my son’s rugby match last weekend. I saw myself and the recent crop of Australian filmmakers embodied in some small whippersnapper, who cradling the ball like a fragile egg, dared to duck and dive around snarling overgrown beasts on the field, almost making it to the try line, only to be laid flat by a succession of spoilsports who, one after the other, threw themselves on the lad, squashing the precious egg and all hopes of a rare victory. I am beginning to perceive a campaign, conscious or otherwise, of criticising filmmakers like me who dare to lay their fragile, singular, Aussie films and run with them into the crowded, bullying market place. - Rachel Ward in the Sydney Morning Herald, August 28, 2009
He applied for the job when he was 18 … I said, ‘no you’re too young’. He said, ‘I’m not too young’ and I said, ‘yes you are’, and so I appointed Christian Ryan instead. Now it’s his turn. - Morry Schwarz, owner of The Monthly, commenting on his new editor, Ben Naparstek.
How can a painting, no matter how beautiful and historically significant, compare with [45 000 lives]? If the museum were on fire, would anyone think it right to save the Duccio from the flames, rather than a child? And that’s just one child. In a world in which more pressing needs had already been met, philanthropy for the arts would be a noble act. Sadly, we dont live in such a world. - Peter Singer commenting - in The Life You Can Save - on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 45 million dollar purchase of a small Madonna and Child by the Italian master Duccio.
Media attention is not foreign to me, and if I were to become an overnight celebrity I’d know how to deal with it. - Gracie Otto
Wealthy newcomers may despise them but long-term residents know them by name and stop and chat to them, sometimes giving them money. I think the important thing is that they feel they are known and accepted, not as beggars, not as faceless names in some bureaucratic hostel that seems like death’s waiting room, but as people. There is something wonderful about that. - Louis Nowra
We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise healthcare’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. … What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - Barack Obama
Most mornings my father and I went for a swim at North Bondi Surf Club. The surf club showers were no respecters of rank or privilege. Our companions included judges and garbos, teachers and policemen and businessmen of all types—from shmattas in Surrey Hill to high finance in Martin Place. There were surgeons whose hands saved lives and there were gentlemen whose calloused hands were used, in a rather emphatic manner, to collect debts for bookies. - Malcolm Turnbull on the democracy of the surf.