I hope that at the end of the seven years, people will say that I have been of some inspirational value to them at home in terms of inclusiveness and abroad, I look forward to representing Ireland.

Be proud to be a decent American rather than a wanker whipping up fear.

I love our shared island, our shared Ireland and its core decency. I love it for its imagination and its celebration of the endless possibilities for our people.

Every age, after all, must have its own aisling and dream of a better, kinder, happier, shared world.

We need to discuss the basis of a new form of trust built on a meaningful form of citizenship appropriate for a republic.

When I started out, people were afraid of parish priests. Now they're afraid of newspaper editors.

I think even the poorest people in the great country that is the United States should be entitled to basic health care.

I am delighted to be back home in Galway, the place I first came to as a 19-year-old in 1960. It's here where my heart is and will forever be.

I am delighted with the strong vote I have received. My message of positive leadership, patriotism and commitment clearly was resonating with tens of thousands of ordinary Irish people.

I want to say a very sincere thank you for this welcome home - it is a wonderful welcome home. It is the place to where I return and where I will always return because it is of Galway that I am.

While the wider global environment is worrying, we are seeing some positive results in our economic affairs.

We never move on from the cross. We only get a more profound understanding of the cross.

And in the end, really, there's nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe "Oh.

I wanted to eat her pain, take it into me and make it my own.

It's really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don't get in trouble.

I'm cool with whatever. I'll just keep eating my bread, sipping my soup and serving my time. But the chicken is going to lay some more eggs one day.

Camera phones threaten to turn everyone into amateur paparazzi. We are witnessing our personal space shrink because of the way technology is being used.

One doesn't read poetry while thinking of other things.

Being barefoot makes me feel vulnerable.

The factor that makes people extremely vulnerable to enslavement is the lack of the rule of law.

To write history is as important as to make history. It is an unchanging truth that if the writer does not remain true to the maker, then it takes on a quality that will confuse humanity.