"Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice."

"We read too much Shakespeare at school, and view our parliamentary politics as dynastic drama, in which an impatient crown prince frets at his long subordination and begins to scheme for the throne he knows he merits, was promised and has earned."

"Since the attack on the United States on September 11 2001, and the US retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq, there must be few people who have not felt a twinge of nostalgia for the cold war."

"Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue."

"I'm known clean around the Earth."

"Environmental policy must strike a balance between the earth's best interests and our citizen's pressing needs."

"We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea. Without words they respond through the rustling of leaves and the moving of clouds and the murmuring of the sea."

"Sydney in general is eclectic. You can be on that brilliant blue ocean walk in the morning and then within 20 minutes you can be in a completely vast suburban sprawl or an Italian or Asian suburb, and it's that mix of people, it's that melting pot of people that give it its vital personality."