Canberra Quotes

“Regional interests and loyalties are even stronger among Australians than among Americans - in that in social life they exist almost without challenge. Canberra is a poor thing compared to Washington and there is no great metropolis like New York that sets many of the nation's trends. There is no generally acknowledged central city where the important things are believed to happen and it seems better to be.”
― Donald Horne, The Lucky Country

“Australians used to love to joke about the awfulness of their capital city, its social bleakness, its provinciality, its grandiose, curvaceous street design in which the visitor strives in vain to orient himself. But because I had spent many happy student holidays in Canberra in the 1960s, as the guest of a family I was deeply fond of, I had always loved the place, found it beautiful with its cloudless skies and dry air, and looked forward to every visit; but now, with my new sombre purpose, it seemed to change its nature.”
― Helen Garner, Joe Cinque's Consolation: A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law

“Celebrating Valentine's Day is like falling in love with Canberra all over again.”
― Anthony T. Hincks