Cathy Freeman Quotes

Every day, every year, and for every graduating class, there is a choice to be made, the same option for all grown-ups to make: to be one of three types of Americans — those who embrace liberty for all, those who won’t, or those who are indifferent — and only the first do the work of creating a more perfect union.

America was changing. I had a feeling of destiny and I was riding the changes... My consciousness was beginning to change, too, change and stretch.

The Third World deserves freedom of speech just like everyone else. We want to fight the battle to say what we want, whether to be serious or just make fun of ourselves. That's what "Worldtown" is about, that's what "Paper Planes" is about. It's what people in the third world live through.

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being’s suffering. Nothing — not a career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we’re going to survive with dignity.

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.

I wasn’t astonished by Europe and I was never that impressed by the speed and grandeur of modern America

Every 11 seconds a little girl is being mutilated somewhere in the world, it has nothing to do with religion, culture or tradition but against all rights of humanity its a crime its cruel its unacceptable.

I've had a great time in South America and South Africa. Indeed it now seems that on this pair of wild hot continents I've enjoyed the most fruitful year of my life.

I have had my difficulties with the American legal system, and so I feel qualified to talk about it.

Pakistan, its namaaz-raising hands dipped in the blood of Hindus and Sikhs, began as an Islamic terrorist State and continues to live up to its foundational values. Take it from Balasaheb and me: nothing will emerge from the latest "hand of friendship." Unless, of course, it is Kargil II.

I have been in an abusive marriage. Violence can come from love, from a very intimate person. Violence can come from all sorts of crazy situations. What are you going to do? You have to deal with it when it strikes.

It's important for communities to be put together on a different basis. It's really shitty that we're taught to be really patriotic when 99 percent of the shit that we wear and we use and eat and everything comes from everywhere all the time, and musically, it's the same.

I’ve been doing this a long time. I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children.

Sometimes I think that what I do must be either idiotic and naïve or courageous. I don’t know which. If there was no threat of violence, that is what you would do. This threat of violence shouldn’t dictate what you are going to write or hinder you in any manner.

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.