“I can do all the accounting and communication with felons on a daily basis, and I’m going to get nowhere because the criminals are laughing. They know I have no muscle to enforce this.”

— Spokane County Clerk Tom Fallquist, explaining at a county criminal justice summit why he has trouble collecting some $86 million that convicted criminals owe their victims and the county in fees and restitution.

“I can’t talk about other people. In my sector, I treat people good. In other sectors, I don’t know.”

— Iraqi Maj. Fuad Issa Salih, speculating why Baghdad’s Haifa Street, unlike many other areas of the city, has gone from a place of violence and mayhem to one of relative order during the time it has been patrolled by the Iraqi Army company he commands.

“We’re not selling this as a consumer car. We’re selling passion on wheels.”

— Dan Keto, CEO of Seattle-based Merlin Motors, as the company began shipping the first Merlin Roadsters — high-end, three-wheel motorcycles — from its Spokane Valley manufacturing plant.

“People with disabilities should be able to stand up for their rights without fear, work with legislation without fear, live out in the community, own their own homes.”

— Kristi Laney, a brain-injured Coeur d’Alene woman and former member of the Idaho Council on Developmental Disabilities, participating in a series of rallies to promote state policies that facilitate independent community living by developmentally disabled residents.

“We do not want politics to be perceived as the underlying motivation, and that is certainly a risk if we make adjustments in our remedies presentation that are not based on evidence.”

— Seasoned federal lawyers Sharon Y. Eubanks and Stephen D. Brody, in a memorandum explaining why they objected to the directives they received from senior Justice Department officials to reduce the penalties sought at the close of the nine-month tobacco racketeering trial by $120 billion.

“What I think the agency is saying is there are so many damn salmon out there they just can’t protect them all.”

— Attorney Russell Brooks, whose lawsuit on behalf of property rights advocates forced NOAA Fisheries to review the endangered species status of West Coast salmon and steelhead.

“The ones that are frantic are usually the ones with owners that are frantic too.”

— Marilyn Lilla, an employee of a pet hospital in San Bernardino, Calif., talking about dog and cat owners who reacted to a series of earthquakes by seeking tranquilizers for their animals.