We Can Be Heroes » Quotes » Phil

Episode 1

“This whole Australian Of The Year thing, I mean I laughed at the suggestion when I nominated myself, when I sent in the form.”

“I wag getting lowered down by the rescue workers, I hit the ground, and at times like that you don’t often think of funny things to say but I did. And I turned to the rescue workers and I said ‘Talk about a rough day at work!’ I was referring to spending the time up there being pretty rough. Talk about a rough day at work.”

“I’ve got an idea for a miniseries. Thinking of getting someone, you know get Eric Bana…someone, whatever, to play me.”

“These are the ’talk about a rough day at work’ T-shirts. That’s the quote that I famously said. So yeah, gonna be selling those at the motivational talks.”

“Everyone’s sort of saying to me ‘you’re a hero’. The four letter word, the H word. And it’s taken me this long to be able to say it. But I am a hero. I’m a hero. I’m an Australian hero. And I’ll take whatever comes with that. If you wanna give me the Australian Of The Year then thank you, thanks.”

Episode 2

“This is the office. This is base for me; I’ve taken over Jordan’s room. This where I’ll be dealing with any calls from the media, bookings for motivational talks, drafting the book, all that kinda stuff.”

[answering machine] “Talk about a rough day at work! G’day, you’ve reached Phil Olivetti. I’m not here right now, so I must be out rescuing kids or something. Only kidding. Just leave me a message. Bye.”

Episode 3

“You got your seatbelt on? Make sure that’s on. If I have a head on you could get decapitated by that seatbelt.”

“Settle down, settle down. Thank you Jordan, and good afternoon boy and girl scouts. Hello Ray Martin. Sorry, wrong speech. Today we are talking about rescue techniques. What would you do in an emergency situation? Do you have the skills to react accordingly? I doubt it.”

“The scenario is, Jeremy’s been out bushwalking, terrorists have triggered a tree to land on his back. He’s been under there for several hours. You guys are out bushwalking, you come across this scenario, what do you do?”

“Looking back on it, I probably wouldn’t have chosen Jeremy, not a good choice of volunteer. He’s not…he’s a wuss. Jordan’s always said that. I remember my dad kept me pinned under a railway sleeper in the backyard once, coz I pissed on his tomato plants. And that did hurt, that actually hurt quite a bit. So probably, yeah it would’ve hurt.”