A state that cannot collect taxes, through lack of will, lack of authority or a degeneration of its political culture, is a failed state.- Tánaiste Mary Harney on the Ansbacher report.
Ask anyone who had their home repossessed at a time of double-digit interest and punitive taxation, if this criminal activity was victimless.
- The leader of Fine Gael, Mr Enda Kenny.
It is all to play for.
- Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O'Donoghue suggests a way may yet be found to screen Ireland's home soccer internationals on terrestrial television.
I have never advised the people to vote in any particular way and would never do so.
- The President, Mrs McAleese, defends her statement on an official visit to Greece that Irish people favoured EU enlargement.
In future farmers will produce the crops or livestock that the market demands, not those that attract the highest subsidies.
- European Commission President Romano Prodi sets the agenda for reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Unfortunately, they really played the Slovak anthem.
- An aide to Slovenian President Mr Milan Kucan who was welcomed to Romania with the wrong national anthem.
We will not legalise or decriminalise any drugs nor do we envisage a time when this will be appropriate.
- British Home Secretary Mr David Blunkett.
The American people cannot look the other way just because the President and the Vice-President are allegedly involved.
- Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, a self-appointed public interest law firm, which has accused VicePresident Cheney of corporate fraud.
I have made other discoveries but you really can't get better than Michelangelo.
- National Gallery of Scotland director Sir Timothy Clifford, who stumbled across an undiscovered sketch by the Italian master in the storeroom of a New York museum.
I'm very disappointed but I will continue my battle to have my birth cert corrected.
- Transsexual Lydia Foy after the High Court rejected her attempt to be legally recognised as a woman.
We were so close, yet so far away. Our timing was unlucky.
- C&C chairman Tony O'Brien as the drinks and snacks group cancels a €1.1 billion float amid continuing uncertainty in international markets.
It is a little sobering to see that folks in the chemistry lab can basically create a virus from scratch.
- Virus specialist James LeDuc after New York researchers synthesised the polio virus from chemicals purchased by mail order.
I'm 60 per cent virgin and 40 per cent whore. I've not sold out that much and I've made my own mistakes.
- US actor Rod Steiger, who died on Tuesday.
We know that she'll be lively, alert, friendly, outgoing and HIV-positive. She'll be healthy, not sickly.
- Sesame Street producer Joel Schneider announces plans for a HIV positive character.
I have the feeling that they never read it.
- Amnesty spokeswoman Liz Hodgkin after the Palestinian Authority rejected its report, which defined suicide bombings as crimes against humanity.