“Sex is the most beautiful thing that can take place between a happily married man and his secretary.”

If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up.

I’ve decided the secret of parenting is benevolent neglect.I put my family last. Because if you don’t, if you put them first, they never thank you. You’ll never get a word of thanks from them.

It’s an old Aboriginal word meaning ‘Let’s get together and have fun’. They gave us the word because they had no further need for it.

He’s very, very well-known. I’d say he’s world-famous in Melbourne.

If you can’t laugh at yourself, you may be missing the colossal joke of the century.

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.

New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.

I think a lot of people think that we [comedians] are nerveless people in the theatre, that we don’t feel that kind of terror which traditionally anyone who has to do any public speaking feels. It’s worse for actors, because our livelihood depends on it.

I like people who are slightly unhygienic. A little grubbiness isn’t so bad. BO chic it should be called.

I’m an immensely shy and vulnerable woman. My husband has never seen me naked. Nor has he expressed the least desire to do so.

Everyone had a Japanese maple, although after Pearl Harbor most of these were patriotically poisoned, ringbarked and extirpated.

Most of my contemporaries at school entered the World of Business, the logical destiny of bores.

My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet. She’s now in a maximum security twilight home in Australia

Friendship is tested in the thick years of success rather than in the thin years of struggle.

I was born with a priceless gift, the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.

Sport is a loathsome and dangerous pursuit.

Let a Secretary of Peace be appointed.

I dont have any assistants, I do it all myself, I dont have any secretaries.

We’re not going to sell our values out for basing rights, particularly when (Defense) Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld himself noted that there were options to the base in Uzbekistan

It’s amazing that Bill Clinton could do one thing and have sex with his secretary and really get away with it and still be powerful.

As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I aim to be the disrupter in chief.

The revenge of history is more powerful than the revenge of the most powerful General Secretary.

As Trade Secretary I see the world is waiting. The Australians, the Americans, the Kiwis, the Japanese.

As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my first responsibility is to the taxpayer.