Like everybody at that age, I read an awful lot of pulp fiction. But at the same time, I also read quite a bit of history and read that as much for pleasure as part of a curriculum.

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.

O man ! Do and Do something otherwise thou will have the only deposit of Zilch with thee.

If you have to be careful because of oppression and censorship this pressure produces diamonds.

It's a terrible poison, writing.

It's so much easier just to eat and work out than not eat and work out like crazy.

Love without end, hath no end, says the Spaniard: (meaning, if it were not begun on particular ends, it would last).

No one could ever hate me as much as I hate myself, okay? So any mean thing someone's gonna think of to say about me, I've already said to me, about me, probably in the last half hour!

We probably looked like starving orphan children. Hey! We were starving orphan children.

Reputation is the road to power

Ensuring a healthy future means investing in the generation who will carry that future.

You were born to rock, you'll never be an opera star.