I am having a great life. I like the new senator from New York very much.
- Mr Bill Clinton asked by a reporter at Aras an Uachtarain if he was enjoying life outside the Oval Office
I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
- Senator James Jeffords, on leaving the Republican Party
It's a time-warp, it's almost back to their attitude in 1972 when we joined the [European Economic] Community in the first place. It is as if the last 30 years never happened.
- The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, on Sinn Fein's anti-Nice Treaty stance
I am concerned that the treaty referendum will be a close-run thing. I think it could be lost.
- Mr Michael Noonan, Fine Gael leader
We will do everything necessary and use everything we have to protect Israel's citizens.
- Mr Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel
It has been very helpful to me in two respects. The first is to be patient and persevering and not to be discouraged by the apparent lack of progress or even by setbacks.
- Senator George Mitchell, asked if his experience chairing the peace talks in Northern Ireland aided his peace venture in the Middle East
The source of this attempted character assassination of Mr Sean MacStiofain is the same source that is trying to undermine the work of the Saville inquiry.
- Sinn Fein MLA, Mr John Kelly, dismissing claims that the former IRA chief was a Garda informer
What disturbs me is the behaviour of the Irish Ministers. I really am astonished at their behaviour. They must know they are being used as an electoral stunt by Sinn Fein, so why are they doing this?
- The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, on the decision by Mr Micheal Martin and Dr Michael Woods to meet Sinn Fein's Mr Martin McGuinness and Ms Bairbre de Brun in Dublin
Enough is enough. Why is this brutal and medieval practice allowed to continue in the 21st century? They are a disgusting and nauseating aspect of the sickness which has afflicted our society.
- Mr Alban McGuinness, SDLP, of so-called punishment beatings
We can win. We are certainly winning the campaign. Millions of people in this country are undecided about how to vote.
- Tory leader, Mr William Hague
The baby is born.
- The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, as she boarded the first Luas tram, launched last Wednesday in London
I feel really, really blessed.
- Bono, after the birth of his second son
It is quite alarming. And when I first saw it I was horrified. It was not what we had been expecting and when we discussed the castle with Mr Irons he made no mention of painting it.
- Ms Mary Mackey, editor of Mizen Historical Journal, on her shock at discovering actor Jeremy Irons had painted his 15th- century Irish castle peach-pink
It's good for young people to be angry about something.
- Mr Bill Clinton, after being hit with an egg by an anti-globalisation protester in Warsaw
How could they have possibly made a mistake this huge?
- Ms Kathleen Treanor, who lost her four-year-old daughter and her in-laws in the Oklahoma bombing, on the FBI revelation that it had inadvertently withheld thousands of pages of evidence from Timothy McVeigh's lawyers, causing the execution to be postponed
I feel perfectly entitled to resent the way one unfortunate little aviation company, doing their best, and providing a very good service to the tourist industry, is dragged before a tribunal the way they have been.
- Mr Charles Haughey, asked at the Moriarty tribunal about Celtic Helicopters, part-owned by his son, Mr Ciaran Haughey
When I found out, it was a shock - not a bad shock - because it wasn't intentional.
- Big Brother contestant Claire Strutton tells of her surprise pregnancy with Northern Ireland star Tom McDermott