“Look in the mirror in the morning. You may be locked in the biggest concentration camp in the world, and it is right inside your own head.”

– Holocaust survivor Edith Eger, now a clinical psychologist in California, during one of the public talks she gave last week in Spokane.

“Ang Lee is the pride of Chinese people all over the world, and he is the glory of Chinese cinematic talent.”

– China Daily, the official paper of the People’s Republic of China, where the film “Brokeback Mountain,” for which director Ang won an Oscar, is banned.

“The bottom line is, humans are going to decide where wolves are and where they’re not.”

– U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf specialist Ed Bangs, saying conflicts with livestock raisers are among the forces that will check the growth of wolf populations, now numbering more than 1,000 in the Northern Rockies.

“Let’s keep our No. 1 goal as winning the Super Bowl. If we get there it will be my best season.”

– Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander, the National Football League’s most valuable player, after signing an eight-year, $62 million contract at an age (almost 29) when many feel his performance will begin to decline.

“They’re being bombarded like they are in the West to eat all the wrong foods. The Western world’s food industries without even realizing it have precipitated an epidemic with enormous health consequences.”

– Dr. Philip James, chairman of the International Obesity Task Force, estimating that in another four years one in five Chinese children will be overweight, part of a worldwide increase in weight problems among youngsters.

“I find it hard to believe there is a wall there and those folks are not in the same neighborhood.”

– Spokane County Boundary Review Board member Douglas Beu, talking about a residential area that is next to Spokane Valley but is being annexed into Liberty Lake.

“You’re assigning the same folks that have been asked several times to address this issue. You’re asking them to prosecute something when three times they have said there was nothing to prosecute? Do you really expect them to do it right?”

– Patrick K. Tillman, father of pro-football-player-turned-soldier Pat Tillman, whose death from friendly fire in Afghanistan is now the subject of a Pentagon-ordered criminal investigation.

“We shopped the world’s markets until we dropped.”

– Economist Joel Naroff, blaming Americans’ appetite for foreign goods in large part for a surprisingly steep jump in the U.S. trade deficit to a record $68.5 billion in January.

“It’s like having a baby. You sweat it all the way to the end.”

– Liberty Lake Mayor Steve Peterson, relieved over the last-minute passage in Olympia of economic incentive legislation he hopes will persuade outdoor goods chain Cabela’s to build a store in his city.