Paul Keating

“As prime minister, the pastoral lease question was a very vexing and torrid one for me.”

“The death of Malcolm Fraser underwrites a great loss to Australia. Notwithstanding a controversial prime ministership, in later years he harboured one abiding and important idea about Austra...”

“Russia alone has the capacity to obliterate the United States.”

“I always believed in burning up the government's political capital, not being Mr Safe Guy, you know?”

“The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism.”

“I used to say in the cabinet room, 'confidence is not like a can of Popeye spinach - you can't take the top off and swallow it down.' You know, confidence has to be earned.”

“I think the rise of China is one of the great events of all economic and human history, and I think this will be overwhelmingly a positive thing for the region and the world.”

“The more we view the country through the prism of Aboriginality, the more likely we are to get the angle right.”

“If one takes pride in one's craft, you won't let a good thing die. Risking it through not pushing hard enough is not a humility.”

“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.”

“I have said before, you don't expect conservative parties to believe in much, but you do expect them to believe in thrift.”

“One tires of combat, although I can still throw a punch, you know.”