This Week They Said

I'm very proud of my son. Apart from being his dad, he was my mate, my chum

I'm very proud of my son. Apart from being his dad, he was my mate, my chum. People asked me earlier, "Did you bond with your son?" I bonded with him the day he was born 18 years ago and we were the best of mates.

- Mr Michael Brett, of his son, Gavin Brett, a Protestant teenager who was killed by loyalists

These people are demon-possessed. There is a devil alive in Northern Ireland.

- Mr Peter Brett, an uncle of Gavin Brett

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We have tried to use our best endeavours to achieve a balanced package of implementation. No one is a precondition on any of the others.

- The Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, speaking at the publication of the British-Irish joint package, aimed at breaking the political deadlock in the North

It doesn't matter what is in any paper that is produced. The question is what is going to happen and if there isn't satisfactory action on the ground, then no Ulster Unionist will offer himself for election as First Minister.

- Mr David Trimble, UUP leader

Ultimately, the normal state would mean the vacation, return or demolition of the great majority of army bases, the demolition and the vacation of all the surveillance towers, no further army presence in police stations and the use of army helicopters for training only.

- British government pledge on "rolling" normalisation outlined in the package

You agreed to evil. And this is why today this trial chamber sentences you to 46 years in prison.

- Judge Almiro Rodrigues, to Radislav Krstic, at the UN war crimes tribunal

These guys are playing jokes. I'm here and suddenly I'm the worst thing ever. They [NATO] have to look at everything they did. I didn't do anything wrong. They did.

- The former Yugoslav president, Mr Slobodan Milosevic

The burden of grief and weight of loss is way beyond our normal powers of comprehension.

- Father Finian Connaughton, at the funeral Mass of five family members of the Curtis family, all killed in a road accident

The rot has got to stop.

- Mr Justice Smyth, jailing the Dublin West TD Mr Liam Lawlor for seven days

I just woke up one day and said to Vera, "What am I doing? This looks ridiculous." So I just took a pair of scissors and cut it off.

- Sir Bobby Charlton, England and Manchester United soccer star, on his comb-over hairstyle

I intend to be a non-politically correct wife - baking and cooking all day and making myself sexually available.

- Singer Sinead O'Connor

He was well to the forefront. He loves to drop a few bombs. It gives him, I think, great excitement.

- Playwright Harold Pinter in a criticism of Mr Tony Blair over the Balkans war

In reality it was those people who put him in that situation . . . who were wrong.

- Giuliano Giulani, father of a protester shot dead in Genoa

I phoned up and said I wouldn't do another series unless I got a ticket. Then a ticket arrived.

- James Nesbitt, star of ITV's Cold Feet, on how he got to see the Champions League final