Quotes from Saroo Brierley

I'm fairly sort of a laid-back and optimistic guy full of effervescence and vitality.

Follow your own path.

I'm still so grounded and so regimented, too. I've developed myself for such a long time - my characteristics and who I am - that if I try to change myself, my origins will pull me back.

I don't get asked this much - 'Would you ever wanna see your father again?' And the answer there is that I would like to see him again.

My adoptive mother always wanted to meet my biological mother.

I don't have a birth certificate.

Just as my search for my mother had in some ways shaped my life, her faith that I was alive had shaped hers. She couldn't search, but she did the next best thing: She stayed still.

I almost drowned in the Hooghly river, which is something really crazy. If there is something about Calcutta that scares me, it's that.

I'm a pretty laid-back kind of person.

My quest to find my first family would never have been actualized without technology.

A lot of people forget that anything is accomplishable if you embrace technology.

What happened in my past happened. What's the term - don't cry over spilled milk? That's the thing people don't understand. I'm all right. I configured myself into coming out on the other end OK. I can disassociate myself.

When I first started coming to Calcutta, it brought back a lot of memories... the hardships I went through, the situations I was placed in, and the possibilities of those situations becoming so hostile.

I don't really have a worldview.

Coming to Australia, it was just really magical for me. It just had the wow factor of a different sort of place and, more so, just being with a family that wanted to love me and to have me, because I knew back then, before coming to Australia, there was no way of getting back home or finding my real family.

It's easy to blame technology for what we perceive to be a vast disconnect between people. We're so wrapped up in social media, texting, online dating - in many ways, we're addicted to our devices.

Indians in general are sort of thick-skinned and hard to be moved.

Each time I go away internationally or even to the mainland, I always love coming back to Tasmania.

I tell my friends that 'you don't know how lucky you are to be in Tasmania, because when you go away internationally, you get to see it in its glory.'

The streets of India are not safe for children, and every year, thousands are forced to live on the streets, avoiding being kidnapped or worse.

It was a very scary place to be. I don't think any mother or father would like to have their five year old wandering alone in the slums and train stations of Calcutta.

Mum and Dad had waited 16 years for adoption laws to change in their home state, Tasmania, so that they could apply to the authorities to create the family of their dreams. I am so thankful for their endurance and patience. Who knows what would have happened to me if they hadn't miraculously appeared when I needed them most?

Being involved in sports and having a very sport orientated family just helped the transition extremely well. I guess, in a way, your school colleagues saw you out and about, and you were part of the team you were getting into the Australian way, learning the language. The transition was extremely smooth.

I knew I'd been given another chance, another life in Australia by my parents, so I didn't want to hurt them.