“Unless $150,000 includes every last dime Paul Sandifur has, it is an injustice to the many fine people who have lost their life savings to his gross mismanagement.”

– Attorney P.J. Grabicki, speaking of the $151,000 settlement Sandifur agreed to pay in a Securities and Exchange Commission case involving Metropolitan Mortgage and Securities Co., whose investors Grabicki represented during bankruptcy proceedings.

“I’m sorry, but basically that’s a potential death sentence, and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?”

– Senior foreign service officer Jack Croddy in a confrontation with Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas, who approved a decision to order members of the diplomatic corps to work in Iraq because not enough of them are volunteering.

“We have offered to negotiate with Mr. Bennett, but he isn’t interested. He actually blew off my mayor, who offered him $100 million, which is beyond insulting.”

– Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr describing his city’s attempts to keep Seattle Sonics chairman Clay Bennett and the team’s owners from moving the National Basketball Association franchise to Oklahoma City.

“This has been damaging to my family, and I don’t want to subject them to any additional pain that might result from carrying out this matter under the scrutiny that comes with holding public office.”

– Washington state Rep. Richard Curtis, R-La Center, resigning from the Legislature following a burst of publicity about allegations that he was the target of extortion by a male prostitute whom he had paid for sex while in Spokane for a meeting.

“We deal with this every day in the hospital. Today is no different than any other day.”

– Kootenai Medical Center’s director of infection control, Marty Fallon, as many parents in Coeur d’Alene were keeping children home from school over fears of drug-resistant staph infections.

“It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t fun for anybody at all.”

– Deer Park Airport manager Penni Loomis, who contracted with federal biologists to kill 18 deer that had become trapped inside a fence meant to keep them off the runway.

“Absolutely nothing.”

– Major Gen. Benjamin Mixon, the U.S. military commander in northern Iraq, when asked what he intended to do about Kurdish rebels who had conducted deadly raids into Turkey.

“The last century was the century of water engineering. The next century is going to have to be the century of water efficiency.”

Senior policy analyst Barry Nelson of the Natural Resources Defense Council, describing the growing difficulty of supplying the nation’s freshwater needs.

“Judge Mukasey is not my ideal choice. However, Judge Mukasey, whose integrity and independence is respected even by those who oppose him, is far better than anyone could expect from this administration.”

– Democratic U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, announcing his support for fellow New Yorker and retired federal Judge Michael Mukasey to become attorney general.