“I met guys who weren’t going to appointments because the hospital didn’t even know they were there.”

— Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, describing problems that led last week to the firing of the commander at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the resignation of the secretary of the Army.

“It’s not right to expect the former Fed chairman to take an oath of silence after he leaves office, but I bet his successors wish he’d stick to writing his memoirs.”

— Thomas Schlesinger, executive director of the nonprofit Financial Markets Center, which monitors the Federal Reserve Board, commenting on remarks by former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s recent comment that the economy may be headed for a recession.

“I’ll live past 100, so they’ve got time to make up their minds.”

— Los Angeles Dodgers great Maury Wills, a one-time Spokane minor leaguer and Spokane Valley resident, speaking in anticipation of last Tuesday’s failure by the Baseball Hall of Fame veterans committee to add Wills or anyone else to the Hall of Fame this year.

“It’s ridiculous – those men live in a time warp, when 60 percent of all mothers of children under 6 years of age take them someplace to be cared for.”

— Sylvia Chariton, after Idaho’s House Health and Welfare Committee rejected a bill she had supported to require minimum safety standards and criminal background checks in small day-care facilities there.

“You can be pretty sure that you’ve disturbed them, even if they’re not dead or bleeding or forced to abandon their home.”

— New York environmentalist Michael Bean, arguing for a broad definition of the word “disturb” in federal legislation that protects bald eagles from human encroachment.

“You gotta wonder where Jefferson’s gonna store all those homeland security secrets.”

— North Carolina Congressman Patrick T. McHenry, a deputy Republican whip, questioning the pending appointment of U.S. Rep. William J. Jefferson, D-La., to the House Homeland Security Committee after $90,000 in cash was found in Jefferson’s freezer during a federal investigation.

“They were my people down there, and they trusted in me to come and get them.”

— Medal of Honor recipient Bruce Crandall, of Manchester, Wash., at a White House presentation ceremony to recognize his heroics as a pilot who braved heavy enemy fire while flying to the rescue of 70 wounded Americans 41 years ago in Vietnam.

“My advice to you is to kill Weinstein’s bill or you will have major long-term problems with us.”

— Executive Officer Samuel Anderson of King and Snohomish Counties’ Master Builders’ Association, in an e-mail to the head of the state Habitat for Humanities chapter about Washington state Sen. Brian Weinstein’s proposed “Homeowner’s Bill of Rights.”