Copying Text in OS X

Hi All
I've ben using OS X for a little while now, and one issue I've not been able to get around is he ability to copy text from within the operating system. Obviously, you can interact with text elements, but doing so is essentially useless; though you can use quick-nav to move but character, word, etc., there is no way to select and t hen copy the text in question, as far as I know. One place this would be very useful would be in Skype, if, say, someone sends you a link. The alternative is to move character by character and just type into Safari, something which I hardly relish doing if the link is a longer one. So, is there any way to just grab some text and copy it if it isn't in a document?
Thanks.