It will be my most profound privilege to be President of this beautiful, intriguing country.
- President McAleese
The only decent thing to do going into places like that is to go with as much dynamite as you can carry.
- A delegate to the Republican Sinn Fein Ardfheis, talking about Stormont, venue of the all-party talks
I am deeply sorry about what happened at Enniskillen.
- The Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, on the Poppy Day bombing 10 years ago
I adored college but in academic terms I was a complete wastrel. I scraped a degree after four years of bone idleness. My main interests were drink, women and poker. Looking back, I feel ashamed.
- The former political director of the Labour Party, Fergus Finlay, on his college days
I lent Tony Blair my flamenco guitar to practice on. Certainly he's talented, very promising, but he's had it for over a year now. Can I have it back please?
- Paco Pena, the world's leading flamenco artist
There is nothing less attractive than a panting, middle-aged male with knackered kneecaps pounding the pavements in shorts and sweatshirt under the misapprehension that he is getting fit, when all he is doing is accelerating the arrival of new hip joints and a triple bypass.
- Jeremy Lloyd, co-writer of the classic BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?
I am fearfully self-conscious. I cannot wait to get the makeup and the costume on and become someone else.
- Actor Sir John Gielgud, aged 93
Do I look stupid?
- Rupert Heseltine, when asked if he wanted to become a politician like his father, Michael
I believe that the circumstances in which the defendant acted were characterised by confusion, inexperience, frustration, immaturity and some anger, but not malice (in the legal sense).
- Judge Hiller Zobel, who reduced Louise Woodward's conviction for the murder of baby Matthew Eappen to manslaughter
What is Judge Zobel thinking? What does that say about justice? Does it say that you can kill a baby, and that your youth and inexperience with cranky babies count for more than a child's life?
- Deborah Eappen, Matthew's mother
This year's public displays of bereavement are reminiscent of pre-Reformation popular religiosity, with the cult of St Diana echoing the idolisation of the Virgin Mary.
- Niall Ferguson, Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford
If anybody thinks that it is going to scare Iraq with further sanctions, I am telling him here outright that he cannot scare us because there is nothing beyond what the Iraqi people have suffered.
- The Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz
Saddam Hussein is the reason God invented cruise missiles.
- New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman
I wonder if I could ask the Taoiseach, in view of the publication of the Estimates, where have you buried the PDs?
- Ruairi Quinn (Labour), on the Order of Business before the party meeting which elected him leader
The few remarks I had prepared for this moment have been shredded.
- Brendan Howlin at Mr Quinn's victory press conference
Governing the BBC is in many ways very much like governing Ireland. Both combine creativity with unpredictability and present similar problems in terms of divine obstinacy.
- BBC chairman Sir Christopher Bland