This Week They Said

Free speech not only lives. It rocks

Free speech not only lives. It rocks

- US chat show host Oprah Winfrey, who was cleared by a court of slandering the US beef industry

It's becoming "spot the star" not "spot the frock"

- Titanic star Kate Winslet, who turned down front-row seats at London Fashion Week

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I bought an ice cream once. I honestly can't think of the others

- Eddie George, Governor of the Bank of England, on extra vagant things he has done in his life

The bigger the boobs, the blonder the barnet, the better the babe

- The British Tourist Authority lures young overseas visitors with these words and a photo of page three pin-up Melinda Messenger

It's the most incredible freakish bad luck you could ever imagine

- Mercury Energy chairman Jim Macaulay explains Auckland's power failure

There was a little company law and lots of magic

- Solicitor Philip Ells who worked for VSO in Tuvalu, where some clients claimed spells had been cast on them

Some of the students can be very rude and they are on their way to becoming fat cats, After 20 years I feel I deserve this. But I don't see them paying

- Bernie Hyland, who works in the canteen at UCD, wonders whether she and her co- workers will receive a long overdue pay rise recommended by the LRC

Even an abortionist deserves to be treated as a person

- Dana Rosemary Scallon

They asked me whether I had any girls in recovery who would like to do some modelling

- Donna O'Connor, chief psychologist with the Irish Eating Disorders Association, on approaches by a model agency

What do you get when you put Mo Mowlam and the IRA together? Moira

- A resident of Moira, Co Down, after last weekend's 500lb car bomb

If the use of such drugs [marijuana] was legalised, one avenue for exploitation would be the augmentation of cigarettes with near-subliminal levels of the drug

- British American Tobacco explores possible future products

There's no hung parliament with us. It's democracy. It's true coalition government

- Ginger Spice on girlpower

The Cardinal has never been unpopular, he's not been a prophet, which sometimes is what the nation needs. He is always measured; he has never bashed the nation's head against the wall

- A colleague profiles Britain's Cardinal Basil Hume, due to retire this week

I am angry at this inaccurate and unjustified report which does not reflect reality and is badly researched

- President Mary McAleese reacting to reports that her diary was "astonishingly blank"

We are a strange secret society with mysterious rituals, like Freemasons, except our sign of mutual recognition is grime under the fingernails and a lingering odour of something in the compost

- Top gardener Michael Leapman on allotment holders

We had to stop them. Every tart in London was being presented

- Just published comment by Princess Margaret on the abolition in the 1950s of the debutantes' royal presentation parties

If poverty is a crime then perhaps it is the Government, the social and economic policy-makers, who should be called the criminals

- Father Gerry Raftery OFM, addressing the National Crime Forum

Why, Tanaiste, are you accusing me of accusing you of misleading the House when what I accused you of was concealing information?

- Mr Pat Rabbitte to Ms Mary Harney