People want development. Not everyone knows what it means. Same as jobs. Not everyone knows what a job is, but people want jobs.

If someone comes to me, any community in the Northern Territory, with a viable economic future, and says, 'We want to be part of a bold new approach,' I'll put them down as a major project, and I'll do everything I can to help them out.

I have never declared myself an Indigenous politician; I am not an Indigenous Chief Minister.

I had two family members involved in World War I: two great-uncles. One of them is on a memorial in France. And the other was a trench runner who survived the war. The average life span of a trench runner was 36 hours, but he survived the whole war.

My entire life had been this long, pressured conversation about the family I represented. 'When you walk out the door, you represent us. You have to dress well and make sure your hair is combed.'

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. My family was not nationally known as being a literary family, though my mother and my mother's side of the family in general were interested in literature.

My mother, we were a very poor family. When I was a kid, we would be in our little room, and there would be a knock on the door almost every night with a hobo begging for food. Even though we didn't even have enough to eat, my mother always found something to give them.