“Once it’s off the front page, you forget about the people. We wanted to do something after everyone else wasn’t doing anything.”

– Spokane area volunteer Fran Hammond, who is part of the Katrina Coalition, an effort to collect food and supplies for hurricane victims in rural Gulf Coast communities that didn’t get the same attention New Orleans and other urban centers received.

“I must tell you, it’s not terribly fun defending you.”

– U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, addressing oil company executives who were testifying before the Senate Energy and Commerce committees about price-gouging concerns in light of high consumer prices and record-setting profits.

“I don’t understand how you can have a fair trial in this atmosphere of insecurity, with bombs going off.”

– Attorney Richard Goldstone, first prosecutor at the United Nations tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, after Adel Al-Aubeidi, lawyer for former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, was assassinated in Baghdad, Iraq.

“They weren’t even fazed by the gunshot that went off in the house.”

– Spokane police Detective Jeff Barrington, describing suspects’ reaction when authorities conducting a raid broke up an apparent drug party.

“Once it’s gone, no matter what we replace it with, it’s still gone. It’s not what Spokane needs, in my mind. I think it’s a shame.”

– Advertising agency chief executive Ed Miller, whose office window overlooks the historic Rookery Block, which owner Wendell Reugh plans to level in favor of a surface parking lot.

“While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decisions or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.”

President Bush, responding to charges that the White House manipulated prewar intelligence.

“We’re going to have a little civics lesson for some leaders who are apparently out of touch in the military.”

– Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, one of several governors who believe the Bush administration is trying to usurp state authority over the National Guard by giving the military a larger role in disaster response.

“If we knew they were cops, we would have got out and ran.”

– Kidnapping suspect Lance Karunaratne, who police say rammed one of four cars he had stolen during an 18-hour crime spree into a Washington State Patrol car on Wednesday.

“This is a sad day. We’re becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that.”

– Democrat Janet Waugh, a member of the Kansas state Board of Education, which adopted public-school science curriculum standards that cast evolution in doubt.