Grief is the price we pay for love.

Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as it was yesterday when you and I laid wreaths at the Garden of Remembrance.

[Before each of numerous portrait sittings:] Now then, with teeth or without?

[On the 1982 intruder into her bedroom:] I realized immediately that it wasn't a servant because they don't slam doors.

In the turbulence of this anxious and active world many people are leading uneventful, lonely lives. To them dreariness, not disaster, is the enemy. They seldom realize that on their steadfastness, on their ability to withstand the fatigue of dull repetitive work, and on their courage in meeting constant small adversities depend in great measure the happiness and prosperity of the community as a whole. ... The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.

It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the hard progress of humankind.

[On being criticized for her serious expression:] I simply ache from smiling. Why are women expected to beam all the time? It's unfair. If a man looks solemn, it's automatically assumed he's a serious person, not a miserable one.