“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.”

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.

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.

You can leave a kid alone and it will learn to fend for itself, how to work the remote, a tin opener, and the microwave.

And I love doing this thing, and they will have to blow me out of here with dynamite before I leave.

Uneasily the leaves fall at this season, forgetting what to do or where to go; the red amnesiacs of autumn drifting thru the graveyard forest.

If I could live my life all over I’d do everything the same; the film in my camera would remain the same; there’s no way lord, to leave this love behind.

You can’t change your fingerprints. You have only ten of them. And you leave them on everything you touch; they are definitely not a secret.

If a player leaves Marquette and doesn’t have some of my blood in him, then I don’t think I’ve done a good job.

I did not want to leave the Mets and I did not want to leave New York.

You pause and attend: the heart beats in your chest; outside, the trees are thick with new leaves, a swallow dips over them, the light moves, people are going about their business.