This Week They Said

I think I have treated it in a rather detached way up to now

I think I have treated it in a rather detached way up to now. But actually seeing the men released, it just brings all the emotion back again and it is very difficult.

- Rita Restorick, mother of Stephen Restorick, the last British soldier to die in the North, talking about the release of her son's killers

The position is there is no change. There is no change in the circumstances.

- The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, outlining the Government's opposition to the release of Det Garda Jerry McCabe's killers

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In Irish terms it is a small step for man and a giant leap for mankind.

- SDLP MLA for Newry and Armagh, Mr John Fee, on the dismantling of a controversial British army observation post in Crossmaglen, Co Armagh

Criticism of the peace process has become the closest thing to blasphemy.

- Dame Jane Gow, whose husband, Tory MP Ian Gow, was murdered by the IRA 10 years ago

The Republicans are calling [this] a Wizard of Oz ticket . . . Cheney needs a heart, Bush needs a brain.

- Jay Leno, American talk show host

I just sort of scared him. To see a kid upset is upsetting.

- Tennis star John McEnroe, after he hit a young spectator with a water bottle following a row with the umpire

I had the pleasure of conferring honorary citizenship on him as a mark of the nation's deep admiration for his contribution to Ireland's artistic wealth over many decades.

- The President, Mrs McAleese, in a tribute to the artist Derek Hill, who has died

I'll get a loan if I get a bill through the letter box and I'll do my best to pay.

- Lecturer Mr Denis Riordan, on the estimated £15,000 legal bill he is expected to incur over his challenge to the O'Flaherty appointment

They expect this amazing, sexy, swashbuckling thing, and then he mumbles at them - he's not at all like Morse, and even less like his character in The Sweeney.

- Veteran actress Sheila Hancock, of her husband, the actor John Thaw

A lot of people have come specifically for the nude scene but, of course, not me.

- Liam Bushell, a London-Irishman, as he queued for Jerry Hall's first public performance in The Graduate

I was an ambulance officer for 26 years and thought I had dealt with a lot of emotional trauma. But today I found a lot building up again.

- Retired ambulance driver Mr Rob Adams, who was the first on the scene of the crash in which four women - three of them Irish - died in a head-on collision in Australia

The bride was radiant, the groom was handsome, everyone was very happy.

- Sheila Munro, Church of Scotland minister, after she married Gordon Brown to Sarah Macaulay