“I’m actually very lucky that I cracked this rib.”

– Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, saying the pain she felt on her left side led to medical tests that showed her breast cancer had returned.

“I’ll put my credibility against yours any day, and don’t you dare ever call me a liar again.”

– Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession, in a tense exchange with City Councilman Brad Stark over Spokane’s animal control program.

“There isn’t a single person out here who isn’t mad.”

– Community member Sandra Lampe-Martin, at a public hearing held by the Spokane School District over its plans to close Pratt Elementary School.

“What we’re told we can get is nothing, nothing, nothing.”

– U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., expressing dissatisfaction with a White House offer to allow two administration figures to talk about the controversial firing of eight U.S. attorneys, but only behind closed doors and without being sworn in.

“My cat weighed about 21 pounds, and the neighbor child weighs about 25 pounds. I’m telling you it’s only a matter of time before we lose a kid.”

– Couer d’Alene resident Cari Elsmore, who is asking her city to ban pit bulls like the one that attacked and killed her pet cat.

“At this juncture, people have hazy memories.”

– White House press secretary Tony Snow, addressing the confusion over who in the Bush administration came up with the idea of firing U.S. attorneys around the country.

“The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said. And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public.”

– Sharon Y. Eubanks, leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies, quoted in the Washington Post about the interference she said she encountered from the White House during the suit.

“We demand from OSPI an accounting of how the process worked. Where was the oversight, where was the accountability, and how did it fall through the cracks?”

– Yvonne Lopez Morton, of Spokane, chairwoman of the governor’s Commission on Hispanic Affairs, protesting a question on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL, that was deemed to stereotype Latinos and Latinas.

“FDA is trying to strike a balance here, and they would rather strike it themselves than have it struck for them.”

– Daniel E. Troy, a former general counsel for the federal Food and Drug Administration, saying the FDA was trying to head off legislative restrictions when it adopted its own rules limiting government advisers who work for drug companies from voting on approval of those companies’ products.

“I had no idea that our fiscal position was so rosy.”

– Spokane City Councilwoman Mary Verner, following Mayor Dennis Hession’s announcement that he won’t ask voters to extend the property tax limit suspension that is about to expire.