If there is no decommissioning there will be no full implementation of the Good Friday agreement, there will be no devolution in Northern Ireland. It is a matter of colossal regret, but it is a fact.
- The Northern Secretary, Peter Mandelson, in the Commons on Thursday
I would say to both, stand back from the brink that you're standing on now. Stand back from the brink that you're having everyone else standing on. Stand back from the brink and the chasm that faces the entire community.
- The North's Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon, addressing David Trimble and Gerry Adams on Wednesday
It is clear that if this process collapses, it is clear that if the unionists walk out of the process, it is clear that if the British government is spooked into suspending the process on a unionist threat to walk out, decommissioning is never going to happen.
- The Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, earlier in the week
Let us hope that even in the last hour, the republican movement will live up to the expectations it created.
- David Trimble, Northern Ireland's First Minister
It is important that people do not overexaggerate the extent of the crisis. There is a crisis, and we are working with the Irish and the others to try and get through it.
- Tony Blair's spokesman
I would remind the Minister he is in Stormont and not Castlereagh [RUC interrogation centre], . . . He is permitted to answer questions.
- Sammy Wilson, DUP, to Martin McGuinness
[Seamus] Heaney, whose talents wouldn't, in a sane world, have taken him beyond the parish magazine, is a Nobel Prize-winner because he's a Catholic from Northern Ireland.
- The British author and journalist A.N. Wilson
One has to be able to break away from the past some time. I ask myself if we, who were not there at the time, can credibly ask for forgiveness today.
- Jorg Haider, leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party, calling for a more relaxed attitude to the memory of the Holocaust
I am convinced that we are dealing with international terrorism and we have to put an end to it. Otherwise, we will never live peacefully.
- The Patriarch of Russia's Orthodox Church, Alexiy II, on the war against Chechnya
After being treated so well, I got to go home and be treated like a monster.
- American boxer Mike Tyson before leaving Britain
Each of your victims was your patient. You murdered each and every one . . . I have little doubt each victim smiled and thanked you as she submitted to your fearful administrations.
- Mr Justice Forbes, sentencing Dr Harold Shipman, Britain's worst serial killer
The shooting was a tragedy . . . two young people lost their lives needlessly, and this fact will remain with me long after the case has been forgotten.
- Corporal Lee Clegg, who was cleared of any criminal act arising out of the killing of two teenagers
Most writers are egotists, but not Francis - the gentlest, kindest, tenderest, least self-seeking man I have ever known.
- The poet Paul Durcan, of the writer Francis Stuart, who died during the week