Quotes of the week

Is this a great day or what?

William O'Neill, project manager at Nasa, as Galileo's parachuted probe started to transmit pictures from Jupiter at 11.11pm GMT on 7 December

Another interview, another yard of rope. Sooner or later she will hang herself.

Sir Bernard Ingham on the Princess of Wales

Edward Heath had a lofty coldness which only a leader of brilliance could have afforded, and he was not that.

Dame Jill Knight, Conservative MP

Every time a minister gets up and says beef is safe, there is absolutely no danger, there is absolutely no risk, a whole lot more people stop buying beef because they don't trust the Government.

Sue Dibb, co-director of the Food Commission, an independent watchdog

The British peerage stopped breeding for brains at least 150 years ago and started to breed for looks.

Lord Rees-Mogg

So far as I know, people in the past did not breed for brains - except, of course, that it was advisable for ladies to avoid complete idiots unless they happened to be very rich indeed.

Lord Belhaven and Stenton