“It’s a sad state of affairs when you raise victims’ rights to the same level as the constitutional rights of the accused.”

– Defense attorney Randy Smith, one of the lawyers representing 15-year-old murder defendant Evan Savoie, after an attorney was appointed at public expense to represent the interests of the killing victim’s mother, Lisa Sorger, who couldn’t be in the courtroom during the trial because she was a prospective witness.

“I don’t care how much money you have, at some point the money is going to run out and it’s going to run out fast.”

– Cyndy Asher, describing the financial consequences for aged people like her mother when they move into an assisted living facility.

“FEMA has become a symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy in which the American people have completely lost faith.”

– U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, supporting a suggestion that the Federal Emergency Management Administration be dismantled and a new, effective agency be established to replace it.

“The guy has spent most of his life in prison. To him, getting life in prison is like going home.”

– Steve McKenzie, speaking against any plea bargain that would take the death penalty off the table for murder and kidnapping suspect Joseph E. Duncan III, whose alleged victims include McKenzie’s brother Mark.

“We can be partners. We can support. We can help. But this is Iraq’s time and the time for Iraq’s newly elected leaders to take on these responsibilities.”

– U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during her and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s surprise visit to Baghdad on Wednesday to show their support for Iraq’s new leaders.

“We didn’t invite them.”

– Shiite legislator Kamal Saadi, one of the Iraqi officials who said the two American Cabinet officers’ appearance might do more harm than good.

“Because we can.”

– Environmental consultant Sandy Ralston, explaining why she and her husband, Gene, donate their time and the use of their sonar-equipped boat, traveling to scattered lakes and streams to help find and recover bodies, such as that of Spokane Realtor Gary Fox, who died in an accident last month on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

“It’s outrageous, it’s a sellout, it’s a crime that the Americans would keep a billion dollars of money that seven decisions have now said they shouldn’t have.”

– Economist Gary Hufbauer of the Washington, D.C., based Institute for International Economics, commenting on a two-decade-old trade dispute settlement, under which the United States will return only $4 billion of the $5 billion it has collected in penalties from Canadian timber producers since 2002.

“We don’t choose who we love. The heart chooses who we will love. And I don’t believe that it is right for us to say … that it’s acceptable to discriminate against people because of that.”

– Washington state Sen. Bill Finkbeiner, a Seattle Republican who said this week he won’t seek re-election, speaking on the Senate floor earlier this year to explain why he broke ranks with his party to help outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.