Last Sunday he hardly knew me. By Monday he could remember one meeting, and by Tuesday he recalled three.
- Property developer Tom Gilmartin, who alleges that he gave Padraig Flynn a £50,000 cheque, on the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern
It is a bit unfair that when you correct the record quickly, you are accused of a loss of memory, senility or something else.
- Mr Ahern
I think his position is impossible.
- Tanaiste Mary Harney on Mr Flynn
The Inspector Clouseau of Irish politics.
- The Minister for Health, Brian Cowen, to John Bruton, during the Dail debate on the Gilmartin allegations
She has declined on behalf of the Progressive Democrats to offer any view from the party as to the level of satisfaction, trust or otherwise that exists between her party and Fianna Fail.
- Ruairi Quinn on Ms Harney
Don't be attaching any significance to people leaving the House.
- Mr Cowen, defending Ms Harney's early departure from the Dail. He maintained Ms Harney had to attend a funeral
It is a unique situation and in a unique situation you search your lexicon for a suitable word.
- Dr Peter McKenna, Master of the Rotunda Hospital, explains his use of the word "improper" when describing the behaviour of an anaesthetist
Are you suggesting that I should swim back?
- Geoff Hoon, Minister in the British Lord Chancellor's Office, defending his Concorde flight to the US
Does impeachment mean they're gonna turn him into a peach? If so - can I eat him?
- Singer Sinead O'Connor in a letter to The Irish Times on President Clinton's trial
There's nobody I'm as sorry for as the victims of my violence because they are at the greatest loss and I don't know how I can ever say sorry enough.
- IRA informer and author Eamon Collins, who was murdered this week
Collins - date of your death - 1999.
- Slogan on a wall in a nationalist estate in Newry forewarning of Mr Collins's death
The fact is, I didn't know. I didn't know because it was hidden from me, as it was hidden from other political decision-makers. And some of the heads of police and the defence forces, it was also hidden from them.
- Former South African president F.W. de Klerk on illegal acts of violence against the ANC by elements in the security forces while he was in government
Puritanism is an insatiable vice that feeds on its own shit.
- Colombia's Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez in an article analysing the White House sex scandal
On the instructions of my clients, let's be quite clear, Mr Gogarty is a malicious and artful liar, sir, and that is the case we'll be putting to Mr Gogarty.
- Mr Michael Cush SC, for JMSE, in the Flood tribunal
Let me not in any way reduce the quality of your expression.
- Tribunal chairman Mr Justice Flood to Mr Cush
Families are forced into exile, racketeering, criminality and drug-dealing are widespread. Northern Ireland is descending into a moral cesspit. Is this what the Good Friday Agreement brought us?
- Convicted IRA killer Sean O'Callaghan
You just wash up more and do anything else with jerky movements.
- British comedian Helen Lederer on coping without sex