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

For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.

Think what we would have missed if we had never … used a mobile phone or surfed the Net — or, to be honest, listened to other people talking about surfing the Net.

In the turbulence of this anxious and active world many people are leading uneventful, lonely lives. To them dreariness, not disaster, is the enemy.

[Before each of numerous portrait sittings:] Now then, with teeth or without?

It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime.

When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future.

It has perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all.

I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and ocean in the world, were united to support me in the task to which I have now been dedicated with such solemnity.

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.

[On the 1982 intruder into her bedroom:] I realized immediately that it wasn’t a servant because they don’t slam doors.

It has turned out to be an annus horribilis.

We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock.

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass.

It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the hard progress of humankind.

Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.

I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana’s loss, and gratitude for her all-too-short life. It is a chance to show to the whole world the British nation united in grief and respect.