“None of the seven is really good, for the excellent reason that Australian children never are.”

“But in Australia a model child is - I sasy it not without thankfulness - an unknown quantity.It may be that the miasmas of naughtiness develop best in the sunny brilliancy of our atmosphere. It may be that the land and the people are so young-hearted together, and the children's spirits are not crushed and saddened by the shadow of long years' sorrowful history. There is a lurking sparkle of joyousness and rebellion and mischief in nature here, and therefore in children.”

“and then ah God”

“Because I have conducted my own operas and love sheep-dogs; because I generally dress in tweeds, and sometimes, at winter afternoon concerts, have even conducted in them; because I was a militant suffragette and seized a chance of beating time to The March of the Women from the window of my cell in Holloway Prison with a tooth-brush; because I have written books, spoken speeches, broadcast, and don't always make sure that my hat is on straight; for these and other equally pertinent reasons, in a certain sense I am well known.”

“You grow up the day you have your first real laugh -- at yourself.”

“We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.”

“La pobreza en el uso de la lengua implica una vida pobre, elemental, casi animalesca.”