Quotes from Adam Goodes

I've been visiting community centres and schools for 20-plus years and what I've seen is that kids are kids, they want to learn. They learn from experiences, they ask questions when they don't know something.

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.

Football, for me, was a place where I got accepted for being a good footballer.

I was very lucky to have fantastic leaders before me in Paul Kelly, Leo Barry, Brett Kirk, Craig Bolton, Mick O'Loughlin and Stuart Maxfield, and all of those players led in completely different ways.

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.

The support of my mother has made such a difference in my life, sacrificing everything to make sure that we went to school, did our homework, got an education. That was one person supporting me, and it takes more than one person in our community to help raise our children.

Whenever I had been racially vilified before it had been by peers or drunk men. It's more shocking when it's a 13-year-old child. No 13-year-old is racist.

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.

If people have got a problem with me, say it to me. If you're going to hurt my feelings, I'm going to point you out.

For me it's about supporting our Indigenous kids and completing that whole journey: early childhood, primary school, high school, university and then career. I want to be a part of that process all the way, wearing lots of different hats.

Injuries weren't the reason why I retired. I retired on my own terms.

What I've seen, and the reactions from 'The Final Quarter' and 'The Australian Dream', is that a lot more people are more willing to share their stories around racism.

Because women are more than the people who raise our children, they are fantastic leaders in their own rights in our community, and we want to give them the same safe environment, as we would expect.

By the end of my career I just really hated being out there on that field and being subjected to what was happening to me.

I think any time people are recognised for standing up for what they believe in and the way that they do it is a step forward, because if we don't stand up for what we believe in and we let people get away with not educating them for things that they have said they're going to think that behaviour is acceptable.

I'm not afraid of confrontation. It doesn't have to be an argument. We all have a voice. And they are all worth listening to.

When I retired I was done and it was instant relief. Instant.

That's what I love about Australia: we can do things the way we want to do them, because that's the way our country is - no matter what culture you come from, you can come to Australia and practise your religion, you can practise your beliefs, and you shouldn't be judged for it.

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 just figured that, for me to get the best out of myself and do the right thing by myself, I really just needed to step away and find out what I really wanted to do and hopefully getting back to where my people are from and getting out bush could really re-energise me and help heal those wounds.

The best thing that I did was get myself out of an environment that was toxic to me and to my mental health. That was through retiring from football.

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.

Yes, we do need better representation, but I'm a big believer that we also need to talk about the Uluru Statement of the Heart. We need all of Australia to understand what it was, and is, and what that movement is about.