Sydney – Quotes

One of the stock

One of the stock Sydney jokes is of the census-taker who enquires: ‘How many children have you, ma’am?’ ‘Two living and three in Melbourne.’ Elspeth Huxley

Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs. Edwin Percy Whipple

Moving to Australia was

Moving to Australia was not a career move, but a quality of life issue. It has no guns, no God, and no gangster rap. As an Ethiopian cab driver said to me the other day when I was returning from a gig in Sydney, Australia is a peaceful, democratic place. I like the relatively stress … Read more

I think people care.

I think people care. If not, why do so many people spend money going on vacations to see architecture? They go to the Parthenon, to Chartres, to the Sydney Opera House. They go to Bilbao… Something compels them, and yet we live surrounded by everything but great architecture. Frank Gehry

This specter of the

This specter of the female politician, who abandons her family to neglect for the sake of passing bills in parliament, is just as complete an illusion of the masculine brain, as the other specter whom Sydney Smith laid by a joke,–the woman who would forsake an infant for a quadratic equation. Frances Power Cobbe

When I graduated from

When I graduated from high school, I had artistic and academic scholarships, and I was trying to figure out what to do. I decided to audition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Juilliard and the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney, Australia. Deborah Kara Unger

The funny thing is

The funny thing is that Sydney, who worked on the first film [Tron], developed a bike that had an exposed rider, but they couldn’t do it because the computers weren’t fast enough, so they gave it a roof, which became the iconic one. Ironically what we do now is basically what they envisioned in the … Read more

I have thought about

I have thought about dropping an atomic bomb on Sydney but I wouldn’t gain anything from it. Damir Dokic

I was first in

I was first in Sydney in 1993, and have been a few times since then. For someone who didn’t know Australia, it came as a shock how intelligent, interesting and funny the people were. If I lived there I might see it differently, but as a visitor it was a lot of fun. Colm Toibin

The provincial intellectual is

The provincial intellectual is doomed to arguing at low level… there is still no Australian literary world, not in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide. It is some consolation to realise that there is no literary world in Birmingham or Los Angeles either. I have heard there is one in Montreal, but I don’t believe it. The literary … Read more