Hazel Hawke quotes:

A Garden Is Not Passive. It has its own way of responding to your involvement and commitment to it. When you walk into a garden, you know whether it is loved or not.

The Garden Was My Delight. I grew up with gardeners and I just love gardens. I was always very much aware that gardens were important and they were for sharing...

Beautifully Bleak. I likened the hills encircling Canberra to the sea. They, like the sea, could be a sunny beguiling blue, or deep and inky. They could be distant and mysterious, or beautifully bleak as the wind tore across the plains from their snowy peaks. The hills were ever changing like the sea.

FIGHT FOR THE EARTH: The earth can't speak for itself, it will just slowly die if we don't fight for it.

Nature's Moods The water is always changing and whenever you look at it you get something back. I'm sure the water isn't aware of me but I'm very much aware of it. Living by the water means constant company.

Wisdom is partly innate and partly developed and practised. It's about a lot more than just knowledge: experience, involvement, communication, interaction with people. Wisdom is a way of being.

Women's networks are a necessary part of life. A mixture of empathy and brainstorming can move mountains.

I don't think of compassion as sympathy but rather as empathy. An understanding of how people are feeling, which often translates into action.

I have had the experience common to many women, of needing to define myself and to find my self-esteem as a person, not simply as somebody's wife or mother.

I think that women of my generation have had a real need to form networks and friendships because it's been, as they say, a man's world, and women have felt excluded and isolated to a large degree. When women get together in numbers their strength compounds and is seen and felt by themselves and others.

It is important to learn from other women. We have a lot to offer and to learn from each other out of our separate and common experience. The sisterhood (including the boilers - the old chooks!) is important to me. The dialogue between women is a rich field, but change does not come without a lot of reading, asking, listening, risk taking and hard work.

It is very important that we look at what we CAN do, rather than what is impossible to do.

Living Things. The garden can be as unlimited a resource as you want it to be. It's an escape from everything if you just want a break. It is something to do with living things, not a static piece that you put there and look at but something that changes every day. You're committed to it. If you don't look after it, it dies on you. And if you do look after it, it will give you rewards - pleasure, and a feeling of achievement. There's a sense of responsibility developed in a garden.

Most of all, I like the quiet, rounded tugs. They remind me of women. As I watch them work I see them as kindly, no-fuss boats which patiently tend much larger, grander and more important-looking ships. They make sure these ships get to the right place as the right time, shepherding them with a pull or a push as needed. Their power is not immediately obvious but it is there - inside. I watch them a lot and never tire of seeing their unsung but absolutely essential work. The silent strong women of the sea.

One of the most important thing in families, both for children and spouses, is never to close off possibilities - particularly never to make demands or threats.

The dialogue between women is a rich field, but change does not come without a lot of reading, asking, listening, risk-taking and hard work.

Women who have had more opportunity to develop their own strengths and talents, or who are quite satisfied and content in a traditional role, unfortunately don't always understand that many women aren't satisfied or content.

Women, I believe, learn to think on their feet, to cope with change and survive.

One thing that never ceases to delight me about us women, is the friendship and support that we give each other.