35 Quotes by Adam Goodes

Growing up, I knew I was different. But I didn't know what it meant to be Aboriginal. I just knew that I had a really big, extended family. I was taught nothing about who we were or where we came from.

I enrolled to do a TAFE course on Indigenous Studies, and over the next two-and-a-half years of my course I learned so much about my people and my culture in a broader sense. It made me so proud of my Aboriginality and our history in this country, which dates back over 40,000 years.

As a kid we moved around a fair bit as a family. It was difficult to make friends but sport helped. Once people saw you kick a football it broke down barriers. Instead of being the new skinny black kid you were the kid everyone wanted on their team.

So for me, you can't control the media, you have to work with media to get your message out there and you just hope that there's enough good honest reporting and people in the media that can get that job done.

I grew up playing soccer and it's definitely my first love.

I don't think there's too many Aboriginal people out there who are successful that don't want to help make gains for our people.

Yeah you just have to be true to yourself, know where you come from, make sure that your relationships with family members back in country, back home, are really strong so that connection is always there.

There's nothing, today, that excites me, or that makes me think I would like to be back in AFL circles. I have no interest. No interest whatsoever. My love for the game died inside of me in those final years of me playing.

I play over-35s soccer on the weekend to get my fix of running into people and crashing and bashing, and I still have that desire to win in the sport that I play. I don't think that'll ever lose me.