I have to say Dylan Thomas just cuts me to the bone.
- Actress Sharon Stone, asked to name her favourite Irish writer
I am impressed by the salacious and voyeuristic nature of your work.
- Open letter to Kenneth Starr from Larry Flint, publisher of Hustler and several other American porn magazines
I think that certain people are possessed, as it's called in the Old Testament. I think of Hitler as becoming possessed by spirits of evil.
- The writer Francis Stuart, who denied he was ever anti-Semitic or supported the Nazi regime in Germany
When I was prime minister I was not always popular.
- Baroness Thatcher
One is not amused at that
- Queen Elizabeth, jokingly, after Sol Campbell's goal was disallowed in the World Cup England-Argentina match
Have you seen the Louvre a lot while you've been here?
- BBC presenter Des Lynam to panellist Ally McCoist in Paris
I have . . . I was bursting earlier on, I can tell you.
- McCoist
Well, Lord, it's been a long, hard ride.
- Veteran movie cowboy Roy Rogers's final words before falling asleep and dying
The schools will be closed because we don't have any children. They are all dead.
- District disaster chairman Dickson Dallen after a tidal wave hit northern Papua New Guinea
There are some things for which tickets should not be sold. And the grave of a young woman who died in a car crash is one of them.
- Labour peer Lord Hattersley, on Earl Spencer's plans for sightseers to visit the scene of Diana's grave
I want you to listen to me. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. These allegations are false and I need to go back to work for the American people.
- President Clinton in a denial of a sexual affair with a former White House intern
Having always had a particular dislike for paedophiles, few charges could be more revolting to me than to be classed as one.
- British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, denying allegations of paedophilia in his adopted home of Sri Lanka
This Gaultier-saronged, Posh Spiced, Cooled Brittania, look-at-me, what-a-lad, loadsamoney, sex and shopping, fameschooled, daytime-TV, over-coiffed twerp did not, of course, mean any harm.
- Daily Telegraph editorial passes judgment on David Beckham's kick at an Argentinian opponent which led to him being sent off
I am going to be thinking about certainly what it's like in heaven. I am going to be thinking about my family and my friends and the pain.
- Murderer Karla Faye Tucker in her last interview before execution
Tony Blair, this little valet of the White House, is a liar and impostor [because] all he does is claim that Iraq possesses chemical weapons capable of annihilating the entire world.
- Radio Baghdad
There are two ways out of this crisis for Russia - one realistic, one optimistic. The realistic way is for aliens from another planet to land and sort everything out. The optimistic way is for Russians themselves to grasp what they have to do.
- Former Russian economics minister Yevgeny Yasin
I believe in my heart 99.9 per cent that it was not an accident. That car didn't accidentally crash. There was a conspiracy.
- Harrods owner, Mohammed al-Fayed, on the Paris car crash which killed Diana and his son, Dodi
Free speech not only lives - it rocks.
- US chat show host Oprah Winfrey, who was cleared by a court of slandering the US beef industry
There's no hung parliament with us. It's democracy. It's true coalition government.
- Ginger Spice on girl-power
The existence of the motorcar lends strong support to the view that all men should be locked up from the ages of 15 to 35 inclusive.
- Martin Amis on road rage
Clinton picked on the wrong people when he picked on us.
- Steve Jones, whose wife, Paula Jones, has filed a sexual harassment suit against President Clinton
Eggs, Beans and Chippendales or No Man's Land.
- Simon Beaufoy, screenwriter of The Full Monty, describing initial titles for the Oscar-nominated comedy film which were rejected in favour of the North of England slang for "the whole thing"
The truth is that the majority of Christians did not lift a finger because in their parishes they heard repeated every day that Jews are the perfidious Christ-killers.
- Elie Wiesel, a Nobel prize winner and Nazi death camps survivor, on the Vatican's apology for the church's attitude to the Holocaust
Zip Me Up Before You Go Go.
- Irish Sun headline on the arrest of pop star George Michael in LA for allegedly committing a sex act in a men's public toilet
While we're very dependent on technology, it doesn't always work.
- Bill Gates, when Windows 98 crashed on him during a public demonstration
She was just different. She was a woman. The others were girls . . . I just went for her in a big way. That was it. We never looked back.
- Sir Paul McCartney, on his wife Linda McCartney, who has died
Mr Clinton, America didn't trust you with our health care system. America didn't trust you with gays in the military. America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns.
- Newly-elected president of the US National Rifle Association Charlton Heston
Tonight, again, the strong and arrogant opponent felt the bitter taste of defeat at your hands. Be happy that you have made the Iranian nation happy.
- Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to the national soccer squad after it defeated the US
I feel I've lost the right to look at a child . . . and I do feel the stigma.
- Louise Woodward, the former British au pair convicted of the manslaughter of baby Matthew Eappen, in a BBC interview
Once again, I'm a babe magnet.
- Hugh Heffner (72), former Playboy publisher, single again and on the prowl
It must be a matter of profound and continuing regret that this mistrial occurred and that the defects we have found were not recognised at the time.
- The Lord Chief justice, Lord Bingham, after quashing the conviction of Derek Bentley for the murder of a policeman 45 years after he was hanged
I was asked to write a poem about President Clinton, but he doesn't inspire me. I didn't feel the muse.
- Alexi, an aspiring 16-year-old poet and songwriter from Moscow's elite 1240 school, which Mr Clinton visited
Well I must say, we will witness quite a few events for us to be able to achieve all those results . . . That's all.
- President Yeltsin gives a non-answer when asked during a press conference if his choice for prime minister, Mr Viktor Chernomydrin, would again be rejected
That's my answer too. That was pretty good.
- Mr Clinton, asked immediately afterwards about his admission to an affair with Monica Lewinsky
America should let Bill Clinton back to doing his job even if he will always be remembered among presidents as one with a penchant for bonking trailer-park trash.
- Actress Joan Collins
I would say that the Irish are a genius people for literature. Why, most of them seem to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
- The Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, during his five-day tour of the country
L'enthousiasme de Monsieur le President.
- French newspaper Le Figaro, tactfully describing the semen stain on Monica Lewinsky's dress
It's very unfashionable to say this, but rape isn't actually the worst thing that can happen to a woman if you are safe, alive and unmarked after the event.
- Writer and feminist Fay Weldon
I said in 1992 he's a bright young guy in business, I might put him somewhere and train him to be a middle manager. Right now I wouldn't have him third shift in a hamburger stand responsible for cleaning out the sink after everybody had gone home.
- Ross Perot, who ran for president in 1992, on President Clinton
She is a goddess. I am in love with her.
- Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman on the British Shadow Health Secretary, Ann Widdecombe
Please don't torture me any more, sir, I made a mistake. Other fighters have made more. I'm just a human being trying to live my life.
- Boxer Mike Tyson appealing - successfully - for his licence to be returned
During Israel's invasion of Lebanon . . . I gathered the Lebanese resistance leaders together and told them: do whatever you want with the British and other forces, but I do not want a single Italian soldier to be hurt.
- Syrian Defence Minister Mustafa Tlass, who saved Italian troops from attack in Beirut in 1983 over a crush he had on actress Gina Lollobrigida
There will never be another Enoch. He was magnetic.
- Lady Thatcher, on Enoch Powell, a former Conservative minister whose "rivers of blood" speech against immigration from Britain's former colonies ended his chances of high political office, who died aged 85