My father was unemployed and I was the eldest of seven children. We were very poor. And when you ask how did we support ourselves, the only funding that we had was unemployment payments.

I never thought in terms of being a leader. I thought very simply in terms of helping people.

In my opinion, what changed the situation eventually - and, of course, it took a lot of time to change it, things like that don't change in a week or a fortnight - was the new educational system.

The basis of peace and stability, in any society, has to be the fullest respect for the human rights of all its people.

If the word 'No' was removed from the English language, Ian Paisley would be speechless.

Total ghettoization, because they were in charge of public housing, the local council, and they deliberately located people in a ghetto situation in order to ensure that they maintained control.

All conflict is about difference; whether the difference is race religion, or nationality.

Before the arrival of the Credit Union, people who were from the poor background or a working class background couldn't borrow from banks.

Difference is of the essence of humanity.

I was grateful for the opportunity to make a difference. The political violence really started in 1970-1971. The political difficulties start a little bit beyond that.

They believed that Britain was in Ireland defending their own interests, therefore the Irish had the right to use violence to put them out. My argument was that that type of thinking was out of date.

I have seen the greatest artists and the most eccentric divas in music. The greater and more visionary they were, the more self-reflexive and childlike they behaved.

My soul is full of longingfor the secret of the sea, and the heart of the great oceansends a thrilling pulse through me.

I'm a bit of a book worm, so a lot of the songs I write are inspired by books.

Baseball is the best announcer game, the game that I first enjoyed playing, and the game I had a passion for.

I get to see the world and try to make people happy. I'm very much of a wandering spirit, if you'll pardon the expression.

Only the heart knows how to find what is precious.

What defines us as Christians is not most profoundly that we have come to know him but that he took note of us and made us his own.

I may not get a hit, but you'll see me playing hard. You see my outs, they will be quality outs.

So often our greatest triumph is a willing surrender.

Wherever goodness lay, it did not lie in ritual, unthinking obeisance before a deity but rather, perhaps, in the slow clumsy, error-strewn working out of an individual or collective path.