I am not embarrassed and I will do my duty.
- Mr Justice Thomas Smyth on Liam Lawlor's suggestion that he was compromised and unfit to rule on whether the TD was in contempt of the High Court
I regret my efforts [at the Flood tribunal] were inadequate and I apologise.
- Mr Lawlor, in an affidavit read out after he failed in his challenge to Judge Smyth
There is no sense of this man not playing ball . . . The whole thing up there [at the tribunal] is frightening and terrorising for the people involved.
- Mr Lawlor's counsel, Mr John Rogers
So long as the game in Washington is a game of search and destroy, I think we will have very few people willing to . . . serve.
- Linda Chavez, US President-elect George Bush's nominee as Labor Secretary withdrawing amid controversy over allegedly harbouring an illegal immigrant eight years ago
The Labour Party has been put on an election footing.
- A party spokesman
There is no peace formula on the table. We are a long way off that.
- Tom Pomphrett, mediator in the teachers' dispute, responding to reports suggesting there was progress towards negotiations
I am near retirement; in my mid-50s. My chances of getting another job are pretty slim.
- Paddy Flynn, a worker at the Henniges car componant plant in Ballina, Co Mayo, whose closure was announced this week
Some of the persons shot were probably fighting or sniping, but there can be little doubt that others were not taking any active part and, though the police evidence is clear that the whole of this street was a nest of Sinn Feiners, some were probably not even sympathisers.
- British War Office records disclosing how British troops followed orders not to take prisoners during the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916
The place is packed with rats, hundreds of them. Some about that big, about the size of pups. The dogs used to kill them but they don't bother any more and there's a bad problem with them coming into the vans.
- Pat Mongan, resident of a Travellers' halting site in Clondalkin, Co Dublin
Of the estimated 25,000 Travellers in the State, 24 per cent are living on unofficial sites. Most have no electricity, refuse collection or water supply.
- News report
The President is working very hard to reconcile the two pets.
- White House press secretary Jave Sievert on Mr Clinton's efforts to broker a peace deal between Buddy, his chocolate Labrador dog, and Socks, his cat. Sources suggest Socks will not be moving to New York . . .
The only leader I did not manage to have a proper conversation with was Clinton. I was speaking, and he was looking at the walls, admiring the frescos and the paintings.
- Pope John Paul, of his meeting with President Clinton
Discovering who you are, and being there for your own life, is much more important than any acting you can do.
- The actor Gabriel Byrne
The engine's still good.
- UUP security spokesman Mr Ken Maginnis, denying health reasons are behind his decision to step down as Fermanagh-South Tyrone MP at the next election
The Russian announcement of Raoul Wallenberg's death could only be accepted if it were confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt . . . The burden of proof regarding the death of Raoul Wallenberg lies with the Russian government.
- Swedish-Russian working party report into the fate of Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat based in Budapest who saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis but who disappeared while in Russian custody in 1945
Theoretically, there is always a chance he might be alive so we can thank him personally. That's what I want to do.
- Kate Wacz, who with her mother and brother was among the Hungarian Jews given passports by Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat captured by the Red Army in 1945 and believed by many to have been murdered by the Russians soon after