"It takes professionalism to convince a doubting public that it should accept back into its midst many of those diagnosed as psychotics, neurotics and other sufferers who Victorian communities decided should be kept out of sight in the safety of mental institutions."

"Everyone needs to be valued. Everyone has the potential to give something back."

"I think the British people need someone in public life to give affection, to make them feel important, to support them, to give them light in their dark tunnels. I see it as a possibly unique role, and yes, I’ve had difficulties, as everybody has witnessed over the years, but let’s now use the knowledge I’ve gathered to help other people in distress"

"The kindness and affection from the public have carried me through some of the most difficult periods, and always your love and affection have eased the journey."

"I do things differently, because I don't go by a rule book, because I lead from the heart, not the head, and albeit that's got me into trouble in my work, I understand that."

"I always knew I'd never be the next queen. I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts, in people's hearts, but I don't see myself being queen of this country. I don't think many people will want me to be queen."

"She won't go quietly, that's the problem. I'll fight to the end, because I believe that I have a role to fulfill, and I've got two children to bring up."

"Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."

"When I started my public life, twelve years ago, I understood the media might be interested in what I did. I realized then their attention would inevitably focus on both our private and public lives. But I was not aware of how overwhelming that attention would become. Nor the extent to which it would affect both my public duties and my personal life, in a manner, that's been hard to bear. At the end of this year, when I've completed my diary of official engagements, I will be reducing the extent of the public life I've lead so far."

"Care in the community is a partnership. A partnership between skilled and caring professionals and a concerned and caring community. Working together, to find new ways of helping these people who've been excluded and connecting them with neighbours who will understand and accept them. By providing, proper funding for the homes they will need and the support they so rightly deserve, we can show them how much we care."

"These children need to feel the same things as other children. To play, to laugh and cry, to make friends, to enjoy the ordinary experiences of childhood. To feel loved and nurtured and included by the world they live in, without the stigma that AIDS continues to attract."

"Each person is born with very individual qualities and potential. We as a society owe it to women to create a truly supportive environment in which they too can grow and move forward."

"From early childhood many had felt they were expected to be perfect, but didn't feel they had the right to express their true feelings to those around them - feelings of guilt of self revulsion and low personal esteem. Creating in them a compulsion to 'disolve like a disprin' and disappear."

"I was always told by my family that I was the thick one. That I was stupid and my brother was the clever one. And I was always so conscious of that. I used to go to the headmistress crying saying I wish I wasn't so stupid."

"Anthony Carthew (ITN): And, I suppose, in love? Lady Diana Spencer: Of course! Charles, Prince of Wales: Whatever 'in love' means."

"Queen Elizabeth: I thought the girls . . . you see, they were marooned in Windsor Castle for most of the war, and I was not sure that they were having a very good education and kind Sachie and Osbert [Sitwell] said they would arrange a poetry evening for us. Such an embarrassment. Osbert was wonderful, as you would expect, and Edith, of course, but then we had this rather lugubrious man in a suit, and he read a poem . . . I think it was called "The Desert". And first the girls got the giggles, and then I did and then even the King. Self: "The Desert", ma'am? Are you sure it wasn't called "The Waste Land? Queen Elizabeth: That's it. I'm afraid we all giggled. Such a gloomy man, looked as though he worked in a bank, and we didn't understand a word. Self: I believe he did once work in a bank."

"At the dinner table, the talk turned to politics. It was in the days before the 'Gang of Four' had allied themselves to the Liberal Party [early 1981]. Queen Elizabeth [The Queen Mother]: I dislike this new socialist party of Woy's [sic]. Host: They're called the Social Democrats, ma'am. Queen Elizabeth: Yes. Well, you don't change socialist just by leaving ist off the end. I say, it's a cheat to start something called the Social Party. I liked the old Labour Party. The best thing is a good old Tory government with a strong Labour opposition."

"Tinkety tonk old fruit, and down with the Nazis."

"That is the most dangerous woman in Europe."

"I'll polish it off myself."

"I wouldn't if I were you, Noël; they count them before they put them out."

"Dear Edwina, she always liked to make a splash."

"I am glad we have been bombed. Now we can look the East End in the eye."

"That's mine!"

"Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't eat things, took lots of exercise, all the things you didn't want to do, and suddenly one day you were run over by a big red bus, and as the wheels were crunching into you you'd say 'Oh my god, I could have got so drunk last night!' That's the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you'll be run over by a big red bus."

"But I love communists!"

"Was this yours? Oh, could you take it?"

"The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave."

"Whilst playing cards, Elizabeth: How are you getting on? You don't look very happy. Lord Salisbury: Oh, Ma'am, I've been left with a horrible queen. Elizabeth: I don't think that's a very good of way of putting it, do you?"

"We loved him."

"We'd have to go self-service."

"He is the only man, since my dear husband died, to have had the effrontery to kiss me on the lips.”"

"Never trust them, never trust them. They can't be trusted."

"The food prices are going up – everyone thinks it’s to do with not enough food but it's really that demand is too great, [there are] too many people. It’s embarrassing and no one knows how to handle it because nobody wants their family life to be interfered with by Government... overpopulation is to blame for many of the problems afflicting millions of people around the world... It seemed to me that most religions attributed the world to some special creation and I said, ‘Well, look, if you believe God created the world, you ought to take an interest in its wellbeing... People don’t realise it is the species that matter – not the individual – from the conservation point of view. You’ve got to be fairly hard-hearted about it. Conservation is not a romantic business. It’s a very practical business, trying to ensure as many different species of wildlife can exist, and which means in some cases controlling some so the others can have a better chance."

"Can you tell the difference between them?"

"Well, you'll never fly in it, you're too fat to be an astronaut."

"Are you all one family?"

"Oh, what, a strip club?"

"Constitutionally I don't exist."

"There is nothing like it for morale to be reminded that the years are passing—ever more quickly—and that bits are dropping off the ancient frame. But it is nice to be remembered at all."

"Is it made with Liffey water?"

"Q: "What do you see as the biggest problem in conservation?"

"Have you run over anybody?"

"Just take the thing! Just take the fucking picture!"

"Philip was the unsettling definition of a full-on alpha male: devastatingly handsome, vigorously self-assured, impatient with fools — and not just fools. When he leaned from his considerable height and bore down on a recalcitrant fact or factotum, it could be a shriveling experience for whoever had got it wrong."

"Then we go back to the Duke of Edinburgh; I recall an amazingly ridiculous campaign against him because, on a visit to India, he was invited to go tiger-shooting (such an invitation is a great honour there) and after a few days of the newspapers back home yelling and screaming and jumping up and down, he had to pretend that he had a whitlow on his trigger-finger and so couldn't shoot anything, not even a tabloid journalist."

"My father, for I suppose the last 70 years, has given the most remarkable devoted service to the queen, to my family, to the country and also to the whole of the Commonwealth."

"When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife."

"You have mosquitoes. I have the Press."

"British women can't cook."