It was always easy for me. I was born very rich and lucky.

We cheer everyone who goes off to Hollywood and tells American stories but telling Australian stories is the greatest thing you can do.

There are a thousand weird untold stories in the Australian film industry, this has been one of them.

Can you imagine what it would be like if all the Aussie film talent was able to make Australian stories?

The obsession required to see a feature through from concept to release is not a rational thing to do with your brief time on this planet. Nor is it something to which an intelligent person should aspire.

So we have to be careful because if you don't protect your culture you won't have it for very long.

Australians don't have a preconceived notion of what things have to be... we can go on a fantastic journey.

My background was art school, documentary director and surfer with a keen interest in thrilling acts of life threatening stupidity.

I kind of worry about that a little bit - we lost our film culture for 30 years because the Americans came in and bought up all the cinema chains and wouldn't show any Australian films.

Three years after starting, by physically doing everything from raising the finance to special effects, we'd finally cobbled together our low budget film.

You go overseas and people are oppressed and scared and worried but we're not like that... we're more like my films and how people come out at the end of seeing them - they feel good.

While the eyes of the world will be on us let's show everyone that we have a great sense of humour.

It was always easy for me. I was born very rich and lucky.

Find your own specific voice in filmmaking and go for it. Either people will get it or they won't and that's what it's all about.

It's because we are so flooded with American culture that we're startled when we see ourselves up there on the screen.

Hollywood is horrible... it's beyond satire.

We've got so many stories to tell, you know, we could take on the world.

Movies are usually difficult, often insane, constantly challenging and always strangely amusing to make.

It's an infinite creative universe to explore so why chase conservative options?

All the jokes in my films, the comedy, they're not me, I just try to hold a big mirror up to us.

I just wanted to do this all Australian film and we didn't want to give creative control to overseas 'cause whoever comes on my sets, whether you're sweeping the floor or an actor, it doesn't matter who comes up with the ideas, it's a collaboration.

I support all Australian films.

Now both my films have been number one at the Australian box office and it took about two years just to get the finance for this film, so if it's hard for me then God help everyone else.

In a kind of a way there's a bit of that happening now so we have to be careful to preserve our culture.

I don't know what it means to be out there against the Olympics.

In 1905 Albert discovered Relativity, in 1906 he invented Rock and Roll.

Movies are a complicated collision of literature, theatre, music and all the visual arts.

Then if your movie clicks with real audiences, you'll be sucked into some sort of Hollywood orbit. It's a devil of a place where the only religion that really counts is box office.

Making your first feature film is actually impossible.

We live in a time where government is not a leadership thing, it's more a business that's out there and running riot, so I guess the people have to go out there and say stuff.

The journey of your first movie is not just beyond belief it can be truly beyond satire.

Getting your screenplay right is the most important thing you'll ever do on your film.

If government and media and all of us in the Australian tribe got together, and the rock industry, we'd just be the greatest cultural force the world has ever seen - we're such an amazing race.

The American formula things are out there but they don't have any stories to tell - we have all the stories to tell - but they're all formula.

We should bomb Vietnam back into the stone age.

I was nervous batting eighth, and I was nervous batting seventh.

The gospel is a message of peace. Christianity is a system which, received and obeyed, would spread peace, harmony, and happiness throughout the earth.

All great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one.

I don't have hard numbers about this, but the impression I get is that the amount of eyeballs you get from being on the humor shelf at Barnes & Noble - it is almost insignificant.

My provocative statement is that we desperately need a serious, scientific theory of cities and scientific theory means quantifiable, relying on underlying generic principles that can be made in a - put into a predictive framework. That's the quest.

Integration is the most important asset Europe has, and the key component to European integration is the euro.

When I sing, I close my eyes. If I see a feather, everything is fine. Without this image in my mind, the sound is not 'truthful' enough, and I must begin again. I have to.

Just because a subject is serious doesn't mean it doesn't have plenty of absurdities.

I didn't need to borrow money from the record company, because if I had my own publishing company, and I had my own writers, I'd have enough to get and do whatever I wanted to do.

Hire sales people who are really smart problem solvers, but lack courage, hunger and competitiveness, and your company will go out of business.

I know that balance that I need to have in my life.

One of the coolest things about touring around, actually, is getting to meet people, and getting to pick up on things that other people like. So many times, people come up to me after a reading and say, 'You must have read this,' or 'You must have seen this,' or 'Do you listen to this?' Usually I haven't.

Life is short, but the years are long.

Be it in the garden, the nursery or the bedroom, a loving touch compensates for an unskilled hand.