We have been savagely woken from a pleasant dream.
The city will not recover Wednesday's confidence and joy in a very long time. Who will want to travel on the tube, once it has been cleared? How will we sit at our ease in a restaurant, cinema or theatre?
- Writer Ian McEwan on Thursday's London bombings, which came the morning after the city learned it would host the 2012 Olympics.
They are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, trying to stop us from going about our business as we are entitled to do, and they should not and must not succeed.
- British prime minister Tony Blair.
The heroic Mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear.
- A statement from the Secret Organisation of the al-Qaeda Jihad in Europe, which claimed responsibility for the attacks.
This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old.
- London mayor Ken Livingstone.
Brought the wrong Clinton!
- Heckler calls after the New York delegation led by Senator Hillary Clinton after being voted out of the Olympic competition.
Divorce is not desired but most of our Christian believers would consider it not just a necessary evil but perhaps even a valuable institution.
- Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin.
If we want an EU based on people rather than money, if we want a Europe of communities rather than of companies, we will have to listen again to old truths.
- Taoiseach Bertie Ahern reflects on religion and the EU in his Irish Times article on meeting the Pope
A bunch of losers.
- Bob Geldof's opinion of protesters who clashed with police before the G8 summit in Scotland.
Playing golf makes me even happier than going to a great party.
- Iranian aerobics instructor Rabieh Alikhasy (30) on a sport that is increasingly popular among women in Iran.
It remains a mystery as to how the notion of a Celtic tiger can be embraced, yet the concept of poverty is seen as mythical. It is real and it is stalking one in seven of our nation's children
- Fergus Finlay, chief executive of Barnado's says thousands of children live in extreme poverty.
It's sort of assumed that we'll all remember how they go.
- Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason says the band members did not meet to rehearse their set at Live8.
A man full of bile is not fit to pronounce on food.
- Food critic Egon Ronay responds to Jacques Chirac's criticism of British - and Finnish - food.
The Kyoto treaty would have wrecked our economy, if I can be blunt . . . If this looks like Kyoto, the answer is no.
- President Bush says the US will resist any deal on climate change.
I've found my way to peace, Georgie; I'm not judgmental any more.
- Writer and director George Englund recalls Marlon Brando's last words to him.