Over the past five years we have received no favours or special treatment from the EU. What we got we've got on our own merits.
- The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, after the EU reprimand
The jingoism of Norman Tebbitt, or the diplomacy of Margaret Thatcher, is no way to deal with the European Union.
- The Fine Gael deputy leader, Mr Jim Mitchell, in a criticism of Mr McCreevy
I think I must be the only member of the House who is not auditioning for Fine Gael spokesman on finance.
- Mr Derek McDowell, Labour
I felt like Scooby-Doo, when he's running and not getting anywhere.
- Ms Natania Reuben, shooting victim, describing her reaction to seeing what she claims was Sean (Puffy) Combs brandishing a gun in a New York nightclub
Art has its extremities and you can't really predict how they're going to play themselves out. This is one of the extremities for sure.
- Mr Michael Greene, president of the British National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, on Eminem
It's like finding yourself in a ghastly road accident in which your car is written off - you step from the wreckage and continue your life.
- Mr Peter Mandelson, former Northern Secretary
He explained his position to me and I explained mine to him. I said I thought it was a mistake. I had contested an open leadership contest, not a heave.
- Mr Enda Kenny, of his talk with Mr Michael Noonan, in which he was told he was excluded from the front bench
She overruled the State Department in the United States more than once to help us, and it's a brave person that does that. And they gave her stick for it, even after she was gone, and I want to thank Jean for all she's done for us.
- The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in a tribute to the former US ambassador to Ire- land, Ms Jean Kennedy Smith
We are absolutely terrified and afraid they will come back and do the same thing again.
- Ms Roisin Magee, after her four-year- old picked up a pipe bomb in their garden
I have to confess, it was hard for me to concentrate in the conversation with Condolezza Rice because she has very nice legs.
- Mr Ariel Sharon, Israel's Prime Minister-elect, on his meeting last summer with the newly named US national security adviser
I want to raise the subject matter of Deputy [Alan] Dukes' question . . . relating to snail-breeding operations . . . We can understand why he wants a ban on snail breeding.
- Mr Sean Power, Fianna Fail
The snail is dead, long live the snail.
- Mr Dermot Ahern, Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs
George W. Bush is like bad comic working the crowd.
- Martin Sheen, US actor
People think they are going to have this Utopia with a community police officer on every corner, a community police vehicle, a response vehicle and lovely walk-in stations. Given the amount of terrorist activity from the dissidents, it is a brave man who is going to say that is going to happen soon.
- Mr Les Rodgers, chairman of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland
This is my home. The garden is part of my home, and I love my garden. I love watching the birds nesting there every year and I love watching the wild bees every year in the ivy on my garden wall.
- Derry pensioner Ms Helena Hunt whose refusal to sell her garden to developers is halting a shopping complex plan