My Story Quotes

“I was not going to stand before the nation as prime minister and cry for myself. I was not going to let anyone conclude that a woman could not take it. I was not going to give any bastard the satisfaction. I was going to be resilient one more time.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“Long gone were the days when, for an individual, a second-class education was a ticket to a secure, full-time menial job. In the 21st-century economy, with its new technology, many of those jobs had been destroyed. That second-class education was more likely to precede a marginalised life with no continuing work.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“Indigenous children, children from the poorest of homes, can succeed to the highest of standards if we, the adults, are prepared to do everything necessary to get them a great education.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“I found Chancellor Merkel’s frankness admirable. When I met with her at this G20 meeting, with deep cynicism she described how for photos Germans no longer said ‘cheese’. Instead they would grit their teeth and say ‘Greeeece’.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“Nurture your sense of self, who you are in your own eyes, not as seen through the eyes of others.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“It wasn’t the carnage behind that gave me the horrors, but the woman standing in front of it,’ Gai expounded.4”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“There was a policy question to be debated about how to properly position the economic relationship. Australia had never been in a position before where our major trading partner is neither an ally nor a democracy. It posed new challenges and required us to ask new questions. We resolved to seek the two-track structure Wayne advocated. The”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“At the G20 meeting in South Korea, China’s President Hu dug his toes in over some text in the communique President Obama needed politically on currency issues. I watched Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom execute a pincer movement, then he conceded. On Australia’s side of the ledger, tensions had risen when our government had eschewed the involvement of the Chinese company Huawei in building the NBN. We also risked Chinese ire by not stopping a fierce critic of China’s approach to human rights, a leader of the Uyghur ethnic group, from visiting Australia. China was also smarting about the price hikes they had experienced in coal and”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“Senator Bill Heffernan for being ‘deliberately barren’ and then had to stomach reading follow-up pieces like the one entitled ‘Barren Behaviour’ in The Australian, which stated:”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“The news reports out of Canberra are overwhelmingly brought to you by men.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“daily newspaper”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“It is because the issue of gender is so hard to wrestle with that I said in my final address as prime minister that gender ‘doesn’t explain everything’ about my prime ministership, ‘it doesn’t explain nothing; it explains some things. And it is for the nation to think in a sophisticated way about these shades of grey.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“a”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“only the impotent are pure.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“A truism of life is change brings opportunity and risk.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“committing political harikari.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“I soon learnt that even when new benefits are provided, people do not conclude that there is more spare cash in their wallet than there used to be. So”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“Despite the language barrier, I could feel the depths of this man’s distress and visualise the horror that had taken place here. I was chilled, wet and mesmerised. This was strongly evident in the photo taken, which ran in the next day’s papers. Unbelievably the reaction it sparked was not one of empathy for the Japanese people but criticism of my appearance from racing identity Gai Waterhouse. ‘She desperately needs a make-over.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story

“Then there were some particular problems that had been caused by Kevin. Understandably Kevin was proud of his mastery of Mandarin and his expertise on China. On his ascension to the prime ministership, no doubt many in China’s diplomatic and foreign policy community would have expected new warmth to be injected into the relationship. Instead Kevin hit an uneven stride, sometimes over-familiar, sometimes too critical, the most spectacular example of which was his expletive-laden rant post the Copenhagen climate change conference.”
― Julia Gillard, My Story