“Family does not necessarily mean blood relatives but often a description of a community, organisation or nation.”

Look, I know he has to appeal to the crazy right-wingers in his party, but the fact is, he’s not as forward-thinking as an eighty-seven-year-old lady who wears a crown on her head. It’s pathetic.

My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim.

[To the suggestion that Great Britain might someday want a Republic:] We’ll go quietly.

Good memories are our second chance at happiness.

Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendour that are gone but a declaration of our hopes for the future, and for the years I may, by God’s Grace and Mercy, be given to reign and serve you as your Queen.

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women

I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast.

I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.

There are long periods when life seems a small, dull round, a petty business with no point, and then suddenly we are caught up in some great event which gives us a glimpse of the solid and durable foundations of our existence.

At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Christmas story. A young mother and a dutiful father with their baby were joined by poor shepherds and visitors from afar. They came with their gifts to worship the Christ child.

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.

You don’t need a city charter to know that education is the foundation of any community.

Differ though we might with Christianity’s view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis.

Our diplomacy ended up giving a bad conscience to an international community capable only of expressing noble sentiments while doing nothing.

The congressman happens to represent me. And while there are always more things that we can do in every community, this is a very diverse district with all kinds of wonderful things.

How strange! You seek guidance, yet you do not tread its path, surely a boat does not sail on land.

Make haste in giving voluntary charity, for calamities cannot pass by it.

When I started out, I didn’t feel like I was really accepted in the music or comedy communities, and I was somewhere on the edge, but now I feel like I’m accepted in both, which is extremely gratifying.

Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you’re human.