You know, in the WikiLeaks cables, the Chinese discovered that Kevin Rudd was urging the Americans to keep the military option open against them. This is hardly a friendly gesture.

I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too.

When one has been touched by the stellar power and ethereal playing of a sublime musician, one is lifted, if only briefly, to a place beyond the realm of the temporal.

At its best, Aboriginal art has been effective in translating an entire culture and the understanding of an entire continent. Indeed, the more we interpret Australia through Aboriginal eyes, through the experience of their long and epic story, the more we allow ourselves to understand the land we share.

There are many dying children out there whose last wish is to meet me.

You cut off the capacity for grief in your life, and you cut off the joy at the same time. They both come up through the same tunnel. You don't have one without the other.

I think we are dying in America, I think our democracy is over.

It's a dynamic of grief within any family, and I found, after we lost Steve, his dad just began distancing himself. And I think it's a coping mechanism. I found it very confusing.