Australia quotes

In affectionate remembrance of English cricket, which died at the Oval on 29th August,1882.Deeply lamented bya large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. RIP. NB The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.

-Anonymous
  Notice in The Sporting Times, 2 Sep, after the England cricket team's defeat by the  Australians.

Being lost in Australia gives you a lovely feeling of security.

- Bruce Chatwin
  The Songlines, ch.10.

Kangaroo, Kangaroo! Thou Spirit of Australia, That redeems from utter failure, From perfect desolation, And warrants the creation Of this fifth part of the Earth.

- Barron Field
  First Fruits of  Australian Poetry,'The Kangaroo'.

Hail our Great Queen in her regalia; One foot in Canada, the other in Australia.

-James Gay
Attributed to Gay by William  Arthur Deacon in TheFour Jameses (1927).

The Dead Heart of Australia.

-JohnWalter Gregory
   Title of book, dealing with the centraldeserts of  Australia.

A cricket tour in Australia would be a most delightful period in one's life if one was deaf.

- Harold Larwood
  Body-line.

   The indifferencethe fern-dark indifference of this remote golden Australia. Not to carefrom the bottom of one's soul not to care.

- D(avid) H(erbert) Lawrence
  Kangaroo, ch.10.

I like Australia less and less. The hateful newness, the democratic conceit, every man a little pope of perfection.

- D(avid) H(erbert) Lawrence
  Letter, 28 May.

If I'd been a housemaid I'd have been the best in AustraliaI couldn't help it. It's got to be perfection for me.

- Dame Nellie real name Helen Mitchell Melba
Said to the conductor Fritz Hart. Quoted in  John Thompson On Lips of Living Men (1962).

The Aboriginal writer is a Janus-type figure with one face turned to the past and the other to the future while existing ina postmodern, multicultural Australia inwhich he or she must fight for cultural space.

- Mudrooroo formerly  Colin Jackson Narogin
  Writing from the Fringe, ch.1,'Writing from the Fringe'.

Nature's scheme of colour in Australia isgold and blue.

- SirArthur Ernest Streeton
Quoted inWilliam MooreThe Story of Australian Art (1934), vol.1.

To-day I find from my observations of the sun†that I am now camped in the centre of Australia. I have marked a tree and planted the British flag there. There is a high mount about two miles and a half to the north-north- east.Iwish it had been inthe centre; but on itto-morrow I will raise a cone of stones, and plant the flag there, and name it 'Central Mount Stuart'.

-John McDouall Stuart
  Journalentry, 22 Apr. Onreaching the centre of Australia, at Small Gum Creek. Collected inW. Hardman (ed) Journals ofJohn McDou'all Stuart during theYears1858,1859,1860,1861and1862.

InTurkey it was always1952, in Malaysia1937; Afghanistan was1910 and Bolivia1949. It is twenty years ago inthe Soviet Union, ten in Norway, five in France.It is always last year in Australia and next week in Japan.

- Paul Edward Theroux
  The Kingdom ByThe Sea, ch.1.

Doyouknow,Mr Hopper, dear Agatha and Iaresomuch interested in Australia. It must be so pretty with all the dear littlekangaroosflying about. Agatha has found iton the map.What a curious shape it is! Just like a large packing case.

- Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills Wilde
  Duchess of Berwick to Mr Hopper. LadyWindermere's Fan, act 2.