It has turned out to be an annus horribilis.
I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else – I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.
It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.
Good memories are our second chance at happiness.
Grief is the price we pay for love.
Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are gone but a declaration of our hopes for the future, and for the years I may, by God’s Grace and Mercy, be given to reign and serve you as your Queen.
Family does not necessarily mean blood relatives but often a description of a community, organisation or nation.
Cowards falter, but danger is often overcome by those who nobly dare.
They are not royal. They just happen to have me as their aunt.
Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.
I believe that there is a great fear in our generation of being labeled as priggish.
This thing called love, it cries like a baby in a cradle all night. It swings, it jives, it shakes all over like a jelly fish. I kinda like it.
It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the hard progress of humankind.
For Christians, as for all people of faith, reflection, meditation and prayer help us to renew ourselves in God’s love, as we strive daily to become better people. The Christmas message shows us that this love is for everyone. There is no one beyond its reach.
I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but the living strength and majesty of the Commonwealth and Empire; of societies old and new; of lands and races different in history and origins but all, by God’s Will, united in spirit and in aim.
True patriotism doesn’t exclude an understanding of the patriotism of others.
Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.
Work is the rent you pay for the room you occupy on earth.
For me, heaven is likely to be a bit of a come-down.
The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.