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

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

I don’t like to badmouth people. But I’m the head of a monarchy that began in the ninth century, and I’m apparently more modern than Chris Christie. Look, I know he has to appeal to the crazy right-wingers in his party, but the fact is, he’s not as forward-thinking as an eighty-seven-year-old lady who wears a crown on her head. It’s pathetic.

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

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

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.

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.