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

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

The world is not the most pleasant place. Eventually, your parents leave you and nobody is going to go out of their way to protect you unconditionally. You need to learn to stand up for yourself and what you believe and sometimes, pardon my language, kick some ass.

It is as queen of Canada that I am here. Queen of Canada and all Canadians, not just one or two ancestral strains.

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.

There are long periods when life seems a small, dull round, a petty business with no point, and then suddenly we are caught up in some great event which gives us a glimpse of the solid and durable foundations of our existence.

[To the suggestion that Great Britain might someday want a Republic:] We'll go quietly.