“These are public resources. They belong to 300 million Americans. They don’t belong to a handful of yahoos up at Nordman.”

– Caribou advocate Mark Sprengel, director of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance, defending a ban on snowmobile trail grooming activities that conservationists say attract uses that threaten caribou in the national forests of Idaho.

“I apologize for the fact that this day has been so long in coming.”

– Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, talking to victims of clergy sexual abuse about a pending settlement to resolve their lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane.

“The officers made a good faith but mistaken effort to enforce an old, unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol.”

– Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer, after Capitol Police apologized for removing anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and Republican Congressman C.W. Young’s wife from the House chambers and charging Sheehan with unlawful conduct for protesting President Bush’s State of the Union speech Tuesday.

“I’d hate to see this covered with time-share condos.”

– Electrician John Shea, saying it would be preferable if the Galena Mine, where he works in Idaho’s Shoshone County, were sold to another mining operation rather than to real estate developers.

“Funny how frivolous lawsuits stop being frivolous when it’s you.”

– Lawyer Richard Scruggs, who is handling a lawsuit filed by his brother-in-law, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., against an insurance company he doesn’t think is properly honoring insurance policies on homes that suffered hurricane damage in Mississippi.

“It’s not as clean as I would have liked, but it sure beats the alternative.”

– Davenport School Superintendent Gary Greene, after the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office said there was no reason to continue an investigation of racial discrimination accusations against his district because it had taken extensive steps to clean up what was described as a racially hostile environment.

“There are legitimate privileges that the president can cite. But what is unacceptable for me is for the White House to tell officials in other agencies that they can’t even tell us who they called in the White House. That is a real stretch, and that is not a legitimate privilege that the White House has a right to exercise.”

– Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, chairwoman of a Senate inquiry into the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, protesting the barriers put up by the White House to keep her committee from getting information.

“Don’t ever ask the question, ‘What else could happen?’ “

– Mortgage banker Marcia Paul Leone, sizing up damage last week after a tornado ripped through hurricane-ravaged New Orleans.

“At the time it was as incredible and astonishing as the computer when it first came out.”

– University of Colorado at Denver history professor Tom Noel, describing the telegram, which Western Union stopped sending last week after more than 150 years of existence.