I want people to understand that I am serious about this deadline. Either on July 1st we will move this process forward or we will have to look for another way forward.
- Tony Blair, on the deadline to break the Northern talks deadlock
I have been continually asking for that [abortion referendum] because the people have been asking for that, and there is an equation here between the people asking for the pro-life referendum and the people asking for a referendum on the PfP. In both of those cases . . . if the people are asking for a referendum, why are they not getting it?
- Dana Rosemary Scallon, after her victory in the Connacht-Ulster Euro constituency
Within that structure, the Independents aren't always well liked. Look at Ian Paisley - you spend your two minutes per week standing up as a voice in the wilderness in the [European] parliament and that is it.
- Mark Killilea, retiring FF MEP for Connacht-Ulster, of Dana
This woman has come in from abroad and she is here now for the first time and she is elected. It is a tremendous feat, but I don't understand the reasons for it. I'm baffled.
- Noel Treacy, eliminated FF candidate, about Dana
No, really, not. I promise you. It is situational celebrity: I happened to be the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- Jamie Shea, NATO spokesman, asked if he'll miss centre stage with the ending of the air campaign
What the hell are you doing here? Get on to your commanders and get out of here now.
- Brig Adrian Freer, commander of the British 5th Airborne Brigade, to Russian paratroopers who seized Slatina airport near Pristina ahead of alliance forces
The British are gentlemen. If that had been Serb soldiers, 20 people would have been shot dead.
- Serb who witnessed the shooting dead of a Serbian special policeman by Paras
A continued disunity on display in Moscow would hardly encourage the financial community next week when they are looking to financially help Russia.
- British Defence Secretary George Robertson warning that Russia may pay a price for its mischief-making at this weekend's G8 summit
When you think of this, remember that Northern Ireland is not so bad after all.
- British army officer to reporters who had just visited a torture chamber in a Serb police station in Pristina
Every sensible person has to realise that numerous internal problems and the isolation of our country on the international scene cannot be solved or overcome with this kind of leadership.
- Serbian Orthodox Church in a call for the resignation of Slobodan Milosevic and his government
So with the prisoners who are far better company than the paparazzi, and guards who are much kinder than the Guardian, I am in good spirits . . . So onwards, upwards.
- Former Tory minister Jonathan Aitken, in a letter to his mother from prison
We are delighted that Europe, by agreeing to scrap this archaic system once and for all, has now voted in a new era of humanity for hens.
- Aoife Ni Fhearghail of Compassion in World Farming, on the decision to ban battery hen production from 2013
We have watched with deep respect the transition out of profound suffering of the evil of apartheid to a system based on consensus, forgiveness and partnership. This has given the world tremendous comfort and hope.
- The President, Mrs McAleese, in South Africa for the inauguration of Thebo Mbeki
I felt what the President did, [with Monica Lewinsky] especially as a parent, was inexcusable.
- Al Gore, US Vice-President
Don't shoot me in the face.
- The last words of murdered journalist Veronica Guerin, which a State witness in the murder trial, Julian Clohessy, alleges he was told by the man accused of killing her
That will make some sense out of the nonsense of the millennium.
- Bono, lead singer of U2, urging cancellation of the international debt of the poorest countries
He was simply an English gentleman in the proper sense of the word, that he caused no pain. There can be no question of replacing him because he was irreplaceable.
- The editor of the Catholic Herald, England, Dr William Oddie, of Cardinal Basil Hume, who has died
I wish my dad wasn't who he was when he comes to the shows. It just so happens that my father was in a band. I wish, when it comes to that, he hadn't been.
- Fashion designer Stella McCartney, daughter of former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney