“He was the first white guy that sat with us at our dinner table. Mom told me I was going to WSU.”

– Rogers High School Principal Wallace Williams, recalling a visit by former Washington State University football coach Jim Sweeney, who was recruiting him to play for the Cougars.

“They all had their hand in this pie and should have been sitting in the same seat that Javal Davis was sitting in.”

– Defense lawyer Paul Bergrin, who believes military intelligence officers should be held accountable for inmate abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, along with his client, Army Sgt. Javal Davis, who was sentenced Friday to six months in military prison and given a bad-conduct discharge.

“Nobody knows when it’s your turn over there.”

– Army National Guard Spc. Dan Oehler, discussing the anxiety of serving in Iraq where he suffered combat injuries that may result in a medical discharge.

“What would she get if the firm had done well, a country?”

– Yale School of Management’s associate dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, commenting on the $21.1 million severance package given to Carly Fiorina by directors of Hewlett-Packard, who dismissed her as chief executive officer because of the company’s unsatisfactory performance.

“It sounds like when I was in the Seabees in Chu Lai.”

– Chuck Murray, who lives near Bayview, Idaho, two miles from a state-operated shooting range where plans for expansion have run into opposition from neighbors.

“When we first got involved in this case half a decade ago, the first documents we uncovered caused us to say, ‘These guys ought to be in jail.’ “

– Attorney Darrell Scott, chairman of the asbestos property damage committee in W.R. Grace and Co.’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, commenting on a federal grand jury indictment of the company and seven senior employees for conspiring to hide serious health hazards at its plant in Libby, Mont.

“Welcome to St. Gymnasium for the last time, and if anybody wants to cry, we have Kleenex.”

– Rev. Jim Kuhns, pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, presiding over the last Mass before the parish moves into its own church, an ambition that dates back 50 years but was delayed recently when diocesan bankruptcy decisions interfered with a needed loan.

“It’s a non-starter in Congress.”

– Spokesman Dan Whiting of Idaho Sen. Larry Craig’s office, reacting to a provision in President Bush’s budget proposal that would increase power rates in the Pacific Northwest.

“That comes later.”

– Spokane Neighborhood Alliance director Bonnie Mager, after her accusation that developers were interested in killing off a 5-year-old county development “committee” was misunderstood as killing off the “community.”