“Grief is the price we pay for love.”

In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945.

Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as it was yesterday when you and I laid wreaths at the Garden of Remembrance.

I believe that there is a great fear in our generation of being labeled as priggish.

[On being criticized for her serious expression:] I simply ache from smiling. Why are women expected to beam all the time? It’s unfair. If a man looks solemn, it’s automatically assumed he’s a serious person, not a miserable one.

I hope people will think very carefully about the future.

1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it hasturned out to be an Annus Horribilis.

We have all felt those emotions in these last few days. So what I say to you now, as your queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.

To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in this treasure house, the Bible?

It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.

[To a woman whose cellphone rang during a formal meeting:] You’d better answer that. It could be someone important.

Work is the rent you pay for the room you occupy on earth.

The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has touched me deeply to see so many thousands of families, neighbors and friends celebrating together in such a happy atmosphere.

The world is not the most pleasant place. Eventually, your parents leave you and nobody is going to go out of their way to protect you unconditionally.

I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but the living strength and majesty of the Commonwealth and Empire; of societies old and new; of lands and races different in history and origins but all, by God’s Will, united in spirit and in aim.

For me, heaven is likely to be a bit of a come-down.

The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.