Hugh Jackman Quotes

My mum's from Broome, so I'm a saltwater person - Aboriginal people are either freshwater, saltwater or desert mob. So I always feel much more comfortable in close proximity to the beach, even if I'm not necessarily in the water.

I lived for a couple of years when I was 9 years old on beautiful Aboriginal sacred land in a town of a thousand people in northwestern Australia. It's where the Aborigines are still very connected to their culture, the Dreamtime culture. It was really quite a special experience.

Aborigines are not just the oldest race in Australia; they are the oldest race on the planet. They look like dinosaurs.

Trees always remind me of Aboriginal people.

I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character.

We are so fortunate, as Australians, to have among us the oldest continuing cultures in human history. Cultures that link our nation with deepest antiquity. We have Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley that is as ancient as the great Palaeolithic cave paintings at Altamira and Lascaux in Europe.

Part of my act is meant to shake you up. It looks like I'm being funny, but I'm reminding you of other things. Life is tough, darling. Life is hard. And we better laugh at everything; otherwise, we're going down the tube.

There is a reason why the cultures of Indigenous Australia inspire such fascination. And that is that they represent a unique way of thinking about the world. A vision that over tens of thousands of years has risen out of the land, the power, the very being of our continent, Australia.

I'm Russian Jewish. And I had to grow up really quickly.

My thinking is that if we're going to take from a culture, let's take from a culture that has exemplified success for thousands of years.

During most of my life, my contact with Jews and Judaism was slight. I gave little thought to their problems, save in asking myself, from time to time, whether we were showing by our lives due appreciation of the opportunities which this hospitable country affords. My approach to Zionism was through Americanism.

I grew up partially in Switzerland but mostly in Australia. I lived in Kakadu for a short time - it's an Aboriginal community. My best friend growing up was Aboriginal. She taught me so much.

Precious, she gets hit by life so many different ways and so many times, but she doesn't yield to it. She continues to get up and she continues to struggle for a better life.

When I was growing up in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, I sold doughnuts, popcorn and Kool Aid every day after school so that my family had some money and I could pay my school fees. It was a tough life.

Life is not mean to be easy.

I have the greatest respect for Aborigine people, to whom I owe everything. The time I spent with members of the Pijantjatjara and Pintupi tribes in Australia was a transformative experience for me and one that has deeply and indelibly informed my entire life and art.

Aboriginal art and culture draws from the land, for Aboriginality and the land are essential to each other and are inseparable.

I think there is a real art to walkabouts.

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.

Over the years, I've learned that a sense of humor is the only skill that allows you to turn sucking at life into a career.

No matter what day we celebrate Australia Day, let's celebrate it together and give thanks to the original inhabitants of this vast country. We are lucky to be sharing it with them.

The best life in the world. 'Survivor' was nothing compared to what I did, and it's just that way.

I had no one to help me, but the T. S. Eliot helped me. So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.

The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed. A man must stay sober; not always, but most of the time.

Real life isn't always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgement of what is working in our lives can help us not only to survive but surmount our difficulties.