“I should like to be a horse.”

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.

I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

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.

You need to learn to stand up for yourself and what you believe and sometimes, pardon my language, kick some ass.

Football’s a difficult business and aren’t they prima donnas. But it’s a wonderful game.

For Christians, as for all people of faith, reflection, meditation and prayer help us to renew ourselves in God’s love, as we strive daily to become better people.

We got along very well without trying to make me look like I’m what I’m not.

I would like to be a scholar in whatever I do, a scholar is never finished, he is always seeking and I am always seeking.

I just feel happy to be in America, like I said, it’s the most beautiful country in the world.

In winter, some voices are like coats.

You know, I’ve been thinking: all the women in the books you like — Sartre and Camus and all that — they don’t really exist. Not as people.

Everybody is free to be as they are. Until the whole world is free to agree with you or disagree with you, until you have given the freedom to everyone to like you or not like you, to love you or hate you,

I just want to do whatever makes me happy…Like being totally conscious. Laughing is, like, my favorite thing to do. Being with friends, having fun…being a bit daft.

When I record, it feels like I’m in a bubble. There’s nothing else in my head right then.