Top 7 Quotes & Sayings by Ita Buttrose

The reason women are always reluctant to reveal their age is because other people label them as 'past it'. In the 21st century, women over 60 are not past it - we are vital, active, sexual beings, living life to the full.

Even though you get a little twinge every now and again with the years marching on and become aware of your own mortality, you realise you're only limited by your imagination.

The only limitations are the ones we put on ourselves.

Like it or not, liberation for women will be achieved only with the full co-operation of men.

I played to win. When I was a child, my brothers and I played cowboys and Indians in the park, and I was always an Indian who got captured. That was a learning experience; they were showing me that as a woman I was going to be captured. But in a metaphorical sense, I think I did eventually become a cowboy.

Only a loser finds it impossible to accept a temporary setback. A winner asks why.

Whatever influence you have, it's only for a small amount of time. When Sir Frank (Packer) sold the Daily and Sunday Telegraph to Rupert Murdoch in 1972, I lost my position as women's editor. Suddenly the phones stopped ringing. All the people who said they were my friends, I didn't hear from them. I was only in my 20's, and that was a sobering lesson to learn: how fleeting everything is, and how easily it can be taken away from you. So you never take yourself too seriously, you never think you're too important.