We must start by apologising. On behalf of the State and of all citizens of the State, the Government wishes to make a sincere and long overdue apology to the victims of childhood abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue.
- The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern
My instructions to officials were to publish the lot. Then the advice came back that we could not, and I said to publish what we can.
- Michael Noonan, minister for health at the time the Ma- donna House report was completed, after suppressed sections of the report were made public
You are right. All the facts could have been brought out.
- Mr Noonan, asked if the report could have been written in a way which would not have risked identifying the children, or defaming any individual
The Chinese people have flown into furies.
- The People's Daily, main paper of the ruling Communist Party, on the NATO bombing of its embassy in Belgrade
I apologise, I regret this. But it is very important to draw a clear distinction between a tragic mistake and a deliberate act of ethnic cleansing.
- President Clinton, on the embassy bombing
We should stop apologising. We have made it perfectly clear that this was an accident.
- Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state
It is difficult in these tense situations for them to distinguish between one embassy compound and another and recognise where the American compound ends and ours begins, or indeed for them to distinguish between one Westerner and another.
- The Irish ambassador to China, Joe Hayes, whose em- bassy came under attack
America and the world are learning what it means for the United States to conduct a war with a weak-kneed Congress and a wobbly President. It is not an inspiring spectacle.
- The Washington Post
I don't want my audience going for a piss or making tea while I'm hard at work.
- Actor Dirk Bogarde, who has died, on why he tried to steer clear of the small screen
It is deeply insulting that this man could become a minister in the government of Northern Ireland; indeed, possibly a minister in charge of the education of our children.
- UUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson, on the nomination of Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness to one of his party's ministerial positions in a power-sharing executive
- Gerry Adams, at the party's Ardfheis
Pat Finucane was associated with the IRA and he used his position as a lawyer to act as a contact between suspects in custody and republicans on the outside.
- Sir John Hermon, the former RUC chief constable, on the murdered Belfast solicitor
Just on the human level, she's a very intelligent, engaging, attractive lady, and David Trimble and I will always welcome attractive ladies.
- The Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Seamus Mallon, on Hillary Clinton
An anorexic alien body, alien from every angle in material, size, shape and symbolism.
- Sculptor Mary Duniyva, on Dublin's millennium monument, which she has secured leave to challenge
It's the Provies. It's the Provies.
- The last words, according to customers in the bar where he was murdered, of Newry drug- dealer Brendan "Speedy" Fegan
My grandmother was utterly convinced I'd wind up as the Archbishop of Canterbury and, to be honest, I've never entirely ruled it out.
- Actor Hugh Grant