This Week They Said

I better shake the hands of this man. I'll give him a firm handshake

I better shake the hands of this man. I'll give him a firm handshake. - DUP leader Ian Paisley greeting Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

I think it is, in fact, bad behaviour on her part. I wish she hadn't done it.

- US vice-president Dick Cheney criticises House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her visit to Syria.

There's actually a thriving little underground community that's been studying this exact solution for a long time.

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- Larry Page, founder of search engine Google, in a statement for an April Fool's Day prank in which a link posted on Google's home page connected to a site that supposedly offers free high-speed wireless internet through home plumbing systems. Google called the programme "Toilet Internet Service Provider".

You came here on a compulsory trip. I don't know if I'd put it like that but you could call it that.

- Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to one of the captured British sailors freed his week.

There are elements, at least, of the Iranian regime that are backing, financing, arming, supporting terrorism in Iraq .

- British prime minister Tony Blair.

This decision strikes at the very heart of the way rugby is organised.

- IRFU chief executive Philip Browne as French and English clubs bring an end to the Heineken Cup.

Judge Posner's citation to England's MI5 is romantic enough but needs to be qualified by the long and painful history of its operations in Northern Ireland, which are still unfolding after decades of secrecy and non-transparency.

- Former FBI director Louis Freeh, responding to a suggestion by federal judge Richard Posner that the US needs its own MI5 to counter terrorism.

There are a lot of other things to be looked into, such as who planted the bombs and how did they get there. This Government shouldn't stop until we find it.

- Bernadette McNally, who lost an eye in the 1974 Dublin bombings, is disappointed that the question as to why the initial Garda investigation was wound up will not now be answered.

Thank God it was early in the day. I can't begin to imagine what it would have been like if any one of us had been to the bar.

- An unnamed Government Minister after several members of the Cabinet are temporarily stuck in a lift in Government Buildings.