“I make a priority for the poorer neighborhoods.”

— Spokane Library Board member Rick White, explaining that he cast the only vote against a $6.5 million library budget because he thought the Hillyard and East Side branches should have been kept open at least three days a week.

“If it hadn’t been for those guys, that block would be in back of a dumptruck.”

— Mark Pinch, president of Tomlinson Black Commercial, crediting agents Earl Engle and Mitch Swenson with attracting a California development concern’s attention to the historic Rookery and Mohawk buildings, which may escape being torn down as a result.

“I believe I can help the president get his nominees approved.”

— U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., whose hopes of becoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee were in doubt when he previously implied he would frown on President Bush’s nominating candidates for federal judicial appointments who oppose abortion rights.

“It was not leader-led.”

— U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, saying he had nothing to do with proposing a rule change, adopted last week by the House, that would protect him from automatically losing his leadership position if indicted by a Texas grand jury looking into questionable campaign financing issues.

“The doors were locked. My granddaughter couldn’t get out. Then there came a man — I guess he was an angel.”

— Nina Hinkle, speaking of the rescuer who helped her granddaughter Bethany Ashmoore escape from a car that plunged into Spring Creek, claiming the lives of Ashmoore’s two children.

“Making history isn’t easy. It certainly isn’t timely, either.”

— Republican Dino Rossi, who held a 261-vote lead at the end of ballot counting and, depending on the outcome of one or more recounts, would be the winner of the closest gubernatorial election in Washington state history.

“Please pray for me.”

— Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, after being elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops even as the Spokane Diocese plans to file for bankruptcy because of financial exposure over lawsuits filed by the victims of alleged sexual abuse by priests.

“These days, firefighters are not just men with hoses in hand and Dalmatians at their side.”

— Washington state Supreme Court Justice Tom Chambers, dissenting from a decision that disallowed clerical workers from receiving volunteer firefighter pensions and insurance.