The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

It has perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all.

Grief is the price we pay for love.

[To a woman whose cellphone rang during a formal meeting:] You'd better answer that. It could be someone important.

Experience shows that great enterprises seldom end with a tidy and satisfactory flourish. Together, we are doing our best to re-establish peace and civil order in the Gulf region, and to help those members of civil and ethnic minorities who continue to suffer through no fault of their own. If we succeed, our military success will have achieved its true objective.

Football's a difficult business and aren't they prima donnas. But it's a wonderful game.