Christchurch attacks: portrait of trauma

"If not here, than when?"

- Justice Cameron Mander on applying a lifetime non-parole sentence, a first in modern NZ history

"Each murder was the product of calculated and lengthy planning and was committed with a high level of cruelty and callousness. Some of your victims were children, others were murdered by you as they lay wounded and incapacitated."

"Bereaved families have been left desolate and bereft. The human cost of the extraordinary harm you have done to your victims, to their families, and to the whole community is beyond measure."

"The hatred that lies at the heart of your hostility to particular members of the community that you came to this country to murder has no place here. It has no place anywhere."

- Justice Cameron Mander

"Relief. And Justice."

- Sara Qasem's feeling after the verdict. Ms Qasem's father Abdelfattah Qasem was murdered at Al Noor mosque

"This is New Zealand setting yet another example of the big hearts that New Zealanders have ... their humanity. Their solidarity. Their compassion. You cannot match this."

- Hamimah Tuyan, who lost her husband Zekeriya, on the supportive crowds outside Christchurch's High Court

"The trauma of March 15 is not easily healed but today I hope is the last where we have any cause to hear or utter the name of the terrorist behind it. His deserves to be a lifetime of complete and utter silence."

- NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

"The enormity of offending in this case is without comparison in New Zealand's criminal history."

- Crown prosecutor Mark Zarifeh

"No punishment can bring our loved ones back. But we trusted the justice system, we knew this was going to be the case, and it is now. It is a reality now that this person will not see the light again."

- Gamal Fouda, the imam at Al Noor mosque

"While this will be recorded as an historic sentence, it is the impact on victims and their stories of survival, strength, humility and forgiveness that we must remember."

- NZ Police Commissioner Andrew Coster

"The Islamic community and all of New Zealand has already suffered enough without having to pay astronomical prison costs to keep him safe in our prison system."

- NZ Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, calling for Australia to house Tarrant

Australian Associated Press