In their words

“I wanted to stay downtown and just relax, so I did.”

— Washington state Rep. Bob McCaslin, explaining why he stayed at the Davenport Hotel, at a cost to taxpayers of $130, during a round of legislative committee hearings held last month in downtown Spokane, 13 miles from McCaslin’s Spokane Valley residence.

“Throwing people in jail and letting them rot is not the answer.”

— Saudi embassy spokesman Nail Al-Jubier on his government’s decision to let 29 former Guantanamo Bay prisoners suspected of terrorism out of jail for Ramadan on the promise they would return afterward.

“Not only are the dominoes falling, but the dominoes are getting bigger.”

— Business law professor Anthony Sabino of St. John’s University, talking about the high-profile names starting to be identified in conjunction with a stock-options scandal.

“It’s their country. They’re going to have to govern it, going to have to provide security for it. And they’re going to have to do it sooner rather than later.”

— Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, saying the Bush administration’s plans for turning control of Iraq over to Iraqi forces remain in place, despite occasional setbacks.

“When you’re a 20-year-old and you roll a snowball, and the next thing you know, it’s as big as a house rolling down a hill, it surprises you a bit.”

— Attorney Patrick Knight, whose client Jake A. Brahm is charged with making a terrorist threat over the Internet in connection with messages that authorities think was a prank claiming seven professional football stadiums were targets of dirty bombs.

“I’ve arrived at the point where I would prefer to read Machiavelli than listen to Karl Rove.”

— Lewis Lapham, quoted in Business Week on his decision to retire as editor of Harper’s Magazine and launch a new history quarterly.