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.

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 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.

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

There are 613, 806, 639 men in the world. Statistically, God has got you covered! So, never worry about one person not caring about you. Someone up to the challenge will always take his place.

Our view of reality is only a view, not reality itself.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

Once it was suggested that Saddam Hussein might give his weaponry to terrorists, or might use weapons himself in the region, then it became hard for the Democrats to say, 'Well, that can't happen.'

Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.

I enjoy people even when they're being difficult.

The most indispensable qualification of a cook is punctuality. The same must be said of guests.

I had a big family - two older sisters and a younger brother. My family was like moving around a lot so I lived in a lot of small towns. My father was very restless.

My message to David Cameron, as the head of our government, is to seriously think again about this Robin Hood tax, the tax to help the poor by taking a little bit from the rich.

Living together is an art.